On a Scale from Idiot to Complete Jerk (2 page)

Here's the story the cave scratchings tell. Once upon a time, a
very
long time ago, there was a small humanlike animal. He was all excited because he had found a really big, sturdy stick. You'd be pretty excited, too, if you'd seen the teeth on some of those monster predators. Anyway, so this little guy has a stick he's all proud of. He walks around with it. He props it against a rock. He shows off a bit with it. It's probably his only possession, other than possibly the rock.

But wait! A bigger humanlike animal struts over and swipes the little guy's stick! Just like that, he grabs it before the little guy even has a chance to crack him a good one with it. The bigger guy, with a weird, scratched “ha-ha!” kind of smile, ape-runs off with the stick to his bigger cave. He's got lots of sticks stacked in a pile, a whole hoard of them, all probably stolen. He looks back in a gloating way, rubbing this new stick against another stick. I don't know if that was primitive-style trash-talking or what, but that's what he does. And what do you know? He starts a fire. Whoosh! Little guy's stick goes up in flames. End of stick.

Big guy is now being hailed by people like Professor Basil Blahbitty-Blahblah as this wonderful, supersmart early human—the first one to discover fire.

But we know better.

We know he was really the first jerk.

CHAPTER 2
A Long History of Jerks

That big early-human stick stealer may have been the first jerk in history—or at least the first
documented
jerk—but he sure wasn't the last. History is so loaded with jerks that it would be impossible to name them all, even just in loose categories like “military jerks” or “artistic jerks” or “political jerks.” It would take way,
way
too long, be very boring and involve looking up dates and facts. Also, this is a
science
project, so there is important groundbreaking research to dive into.

Just trust me on this one: jerks can be found in every era of history, in any event, big or small. War brings out a lot of jerkishness in many people, but even beyond violence, there have always been jerks in all walks of life.

For example, in ancient Greece, when everyone wore long robes, there was probably a jerk who deliberately stepped on someone else's robe when they were heading out to buy olives or invent philosophy or something. In medieval times, when knights were going out to battle in their armor, I guarantee you there was some jerk who kept clanging other knights' visors down and laughing as they fumbled with their iron mitts to get them up again. And there was probably some jerk kid in the Middle Ages who would touch less popular kids and scream about having “plague cooties.”

We teach kids early about jerks and idiots. You can find them all over nursery rhymes, fairy tales and children's stories. The Big Bad Wolf in “The Three Little Pigs”? Complete jerk, obviously. I mean, even though two of those pigs weren't the sharpest tools in the shed (a wolf-proof house out of straw? Sticks? Seriously?), blowing down houses is just a jerkish thing to do. Actually, come to think of it, the Big Bad Wolf also
ate
Little Red Riding Hood, didn't he? Or am I confusing wolves? Anyway, eating people will generally launch you off the idiot-to-jerk scale into a whole different territory involving police, courts and jails. But I guarantee that everyone will agree you're also a complete jerk.

Or take “Cinderella.” Hard to find bigger, more complete jerks than that wicked stepmother and her two hag daughters. Look, I'm sorry you're really ugly and crabby and have superhuge feet and all, but you think you can just lock Cinderella up and keep using her as slave labor? Uh-uh, girls.

The witch in “Hansel and Gretel”? Cree-py. Hmmm, a sinister gingerbread house in the middle of a dark forest in Nowheresville…Anyone but an idiot, or a pair of idiots, would have run away. Anyway, she's a
witch
, okay? And she apparently eats children. What is it with the eating people thing in children's books? Anyway, two important jerk clues. Most witches in children's stories are complete jerks, as are trolls, ogres and giants. And anyone with “wicked” or “evil” added to their name is a safe bet to be a total jerk.

It's also almost always safe to assume that any character who's
supposed
to be mean or evil is a complete jerk as well. Like Voldemort or Darth Vader. Complete jerks, obviously. But sometimes the superbad characters aren't supposed to be complete jerks. Sometimes they've been misunderstood, or they have a core of goodness deep down inside. Like that's believable. But think about it. In some really heavy-moral stories, the main character is a jerk who learns to become less jerkish and even sort of nice by the end of the story. Take Scrooge. He's this old, miserable guy—a complete jerk—who gets dragged around by some ghosts who show him what a jerk he's been in the past, how jerkish he is now and the jerk he might become in the future. He finally—
finally
—figures “Hey, I've been a complete jerk!” and becomes nice. Kind of. Only, if he has to have people spell out with flashbacks and hand puppets and things how he's a complete jerk, I'm not sure I wouldn't classify him as still being an idiot.

Anyway, on a similar theme we have the Grinch, who actually steals
everything
in a whole little town (gifts, trees, furniture, food) because he hates Christmas and wants to ruin it for everybody else. “What a complete jerk!” we're supposed to think. But then the Grinch sees that his plan didn't work, because the normal, non-jerkish little Who folks held Who hands, sang and refused to let him ruin things, and so he becomes nice. In fact, his heart grows two sizes that day. Believable? Hmmm…(See Chapter 11 for a scientific look at jerks and behavior change
.
)

But you know what I've noticed in my scientific survey of kids' stories? That for every complete jerk, there's an idiot around. We've already mentioned Hansel and Gretel. But Goldilocks is another perfect example. Goldilocks was a total idiot. Breaking into the bears' house? Eating their porridge (
all three
bowls
)? Sleeping in all of their beds? I mean, come
on
! How idiotic. In my scientific opinion, she deserved to run all the way home with three bears on her heels.

Goldilocks leads nicely into my final observation in this chapter. It's about what I call “hidden jerks.” I'm not just talking about monsters under the bed, although they might qualify. Hidden jerks are jerky characters who sort of fly under the radar, because their jerkishness is not immediately obvious.

The Cat in the Hat is a perfect example. Most people would go all “No way! Not the Cat! He gives those two pale kids some fun on that wet, wet, wet day!” So we're supposed to think. But what does he
actually
do?

He breaks into the house. Criminal behavior usually qualifies you as a jerk, as I mentioned before. But if that isn't enough for you, he brings in those two completely destructive and eerily silent little jerks, Thing One and Thing Two.

He trashes the place and annoys the kids. Anyway, sure, he cleans up his messes, but not until the mom's leg appears in one picture, like she's just coming around the corner and will be home in
seconds
, which stresses out the frantic kids completely. So really, even though the book has some pounding rhymes that you'll never get out of your head, it's all about a jerk.

The song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” gives us another example of hidden jerks. Eight of them, to be exact, because all of the reindeer except Rudolph were complete jerks. Ever heard the song? Rudolph's all shy and embarrassed about his freakishly un-reindeerlike bright red nose, and
all of the other
reindeer / used to laugh and call him names / They
never let poor Rudolph / join in any reindeer games
. Need I say more? Sure, when he became the rock-star reindeer Santa handpicked to guide the old sleigh, they loved him, but when it really mattered they were complete and utter jerks. Bullies, even. Yet people
happily
sing this song every year, as if it's just another heartwarming holiday song.

These examples clearly show the need for some scientific research about jerks. That's where I come in (as a researcher, not a jerk).

CHAPTER 3
Organization, the Sciencey Way, Lame Definitions
and the First Two of Many Scientific Illustrations

I have, in the previous two chapters, scientifically established that jerks have been around since humans began, well, being human. But as far as I can tell, no one has ever done a scientific study of what makes a jerk a jerk, identifying and studying jerkish behavior and plotting it all on very important-looking graphs and charts that should fill up some pages and earn me extra marks.

Jerks are a very large, difficult group to study. There's a lot of them, they can be found anywhere, in any situation, and they don't exactly wear
I'm A Jerk!
badges. Let's face it—the baking-soda-and-vinegar volcano (of which there will be many handed in for this assignment) would have been an easier, flashier choice for a science project.

But difficulty never stopped my scientific colleagues, like Galileo and Einstein, from discovering whatever it was they discovered. Nope, even without Google they figured out some very serious stuff.

The following sections describe how I will proceed in researching this very difficult topic.

A) Organization

Organization is the key to all serious scientific study. In this science project, I will:

1) use A) for the first things in my scientific lists, then

2) use 1) if I need to say more scientific things about A), and then

3) start with the small letters (a) for more detail about 1), then

4) use tiny roman numbers for more (i) and even more (ii) detail, but only up to maybe (iii), which is three, because it starts getting confusing with the
v
's, so don't get attached to the roman numerals.

So, even though I've already done a very professional table of contents (which many, many other students probably forgot to add to their projects), here's a quick summary of what to expect. In this science project, I will:

1) define the terms “jerk” and “idiot,” so we know what we're working with;

2) describe a highly scientific scale I have developed, which plots human behavior on a scale from “idiot” to “complete jerk”;

3) research human idiocy and jerkosity, exploring key scientific areas such as:

(a) Jerks and age

(b) Jerkishness as a family trait

(c) Jerks in sports

(d) Jerks in emergency situations

(e) Jerks at school (a familiar subject)

(f) Miscellaneous jerks

(g) Jerks and behavior change

(h) Animals as jerks;

4) develop You Be the Jerk! a fun, quiz-like section where you get to put yourself in a jerk's shoes and ask yourself, “If I were a jerk here, what would I do?” (there's no grading, so no pressure);