Slice of Life 2025: 9 of 31- Who's the jerk?

Throughout the month of March, I am participating in the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, and even hosted by the team at Two Writing Teachers. Every day in March, I will share a story and comment on the stories of other participants. Please join us in writing, sharing, reading, and commenting!

We all have our moments in time when we're not our best selves. I had one recently. 

I made a morning phone call, and in minutes, I knew it wasn't going well. I asked my husband about plans for later, and his response was well-intentioned (it almost always is with him), but it did nothing but irritate me. I called our insurance company, and the woman on the other end of the phone could not answer one of my questions (which I thought were fairly straightforward) with any clarity or certainty. And the answers she could give were not the ones I wanted to hear. 

All of this was before 8 in the morning. 

On my way to work, I called my friend, Jen. She's a good sounding board, and she has open clearance to call me out on bad behavior. I know this, and she knows this. 

"Here's my problem, though," I said. "When there's one person who's being a jerk, then they're a jerk. When there are two people being jerks, it could be they're both being jerks. When there are three people being jerks, I'm not sure any of them are jerks. Who's the jerk?"

She laughed. I laughed too. I described some of the conversations and circumstances, and she reassured me that there was a fair amount of jerkiness, including maybe some of my own. 

And definitely, when everyone around is a jerk, it's more likely that the jerk is me.