On a Scale from Idiot to Complete Jerk Read Online Free PDF Page A

Apparently, she’s known him for about eighty years. She laughs when I tell her about our meeting with him.
    â€œWell, what do you expect? Everyone knows he’s a cranky old jerk. Always was.”
    Conclusions: The old guy was a complete jerk. Therefore, very, very old people can be jerks.
    It is not mean to think of old people being jerks. We sometimes assume that all old people are nice and kind. But think about it. Old people are just us , only way, way older. The mean kid from school who steals gum from the nice people that own the corner store? He’s going to be really, really old someday. A really, really old jerk.
    Four generations of Murphys agreed that the old guy was a jerk. And apparently his sister, who lives there as well and who I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting, is a real jerk as well. It got me thinking about how some families tend to breed jerks. It gave me the idea for my next chapter. Read on.

CHAPTER 6
Jerks in the Family

    Normal families are all alike, but every jerkish family is jerkish in its own way. In this chapter, we look at whether people can be born with jerkish tendencies and then pass those on to their children and grandchildren, who in turn become jerks. It would be interesting to know if last chapter’s nursing-home jerk has any children, and if so, how they turned out. Short-haired jerks, I’m guessing.
    It seems pretty clear that children observing the way their jerk parents act will learn those kinds of behaviors. Normal kids learn normal things from their parents, like sharing, waiting their turn in line or chewing with their mouths shut. In a similar way, jerkish kids learn jerkish things from their jerkish parents, like cheap-shotting in hockey, bragging openly or banging on aquarium glass even though there are signs saying it hurts the fish.
    But how do you explain those families who have a jerk parent (or parents) and normal, nice-ish kids? Or families where the parents are super nice but one of the kids is a jerk? It must be confusing and alarming when jerks just appear in otherwise normal families—normal parents, normal brother, normal sister, then BOOM! All of a sudden you’ve got a jerk in the family.
    Is jerkishness really just a random occurrence, like tornados or delicious food in the cafeteria? Or could it be a trait passed down from generation to generation, like brown eyes or being left-handed? There’s a scientific word for this: heredity (which is pronounced “her-ED-ity” and not “here ditty,” as I once thought when I was much, much younger).
    Dictionary time. The big, heavy Oxford Dictionary of English says this:
    â†’ heredity noun: the passing on of physical or mental characteristics genetically from one generation to another.
    So basically, what I just said but with the word genetically thrown in there. That means, I believe, something to do with things in your blood. I’ve put the dictionary down, and I’m not opening it again.

    So is jerkishness something that can actually be passed down from old relatives? If you trace a family tree back far enough, will you find ancestor jerks who have secretly passed on their jerk genes to unsuspecting future generations?
    CASE STUDY #4
Rebecca’s Confusing and Alarming Family
    I was disappointed to discover that, other than my uncle Dave (see Chapter 11), both sides of my family are mostly boringly normal non-jerks. I really needed a more dysfunctional, jerk-ridden family to study, genetics-wise, for this project.
    As if it was meant to be, Rebecca (not her real name), who sits in front of me in Language Arts, came in late for class last week, threw down her backpack and hissed, “My family is such a nightmare!” Nightmare family? This was just what I needed. I described my project to Rebecca, and we struck a bargain. Rebecca agreed to research her family tree with the help of her grandma, who lives with them. She was very clear about the