It's the night after Christmas in a Puget Sound suburb, and all through the house of Martha Sutherland, my sister Megan's mother-in-law, a particular creature is stirring things up. Six-year-old Annie Sutherland wanders into the living room where Uncle Michael and Nana are exchanging holiday greetings. "What is this?" Annie asks, "the Old People's Section?"

"Don't laugh!" my mother used to enjoin the older children when little Megan would say something outrageous. Now, in a dramatic example of maternal karma, it's Meg who has to warn people not to encourage Annie's indiscretions, even as she struggles to suppress her own laughter. "Just wait," my mother used to tell Megan after a fit of door-slamming, "till you have to deal with a daughter like you."

Call it the Smartass Gene: Though Megan and Annie may manifest it more flamboyantly, it can be found throughout the extended genome of the McGough family. Neighbors, schoolmates and relatives were often referred to at the dinner table not by their given names but by amusing aliases we had invented. My mother, of very happy memory, joined in the sport -- even when it came to talking about her own children. Sifting through a footlocker full of her letters to me not long ago, I realized that a lot of the letters would have to be redacted FBI-style before they could be shown to my siblings. Even my brother Matthew, more sensitive than the rest of us to people's feelings, was capable of the witty put-down. I have a vivid memory of a neighborhood barbecue at which Matt gestured in the direction of a modish clergyman who wore his dog collar over an iridescent blue priest's shirt. Matt whispered: "He's from Our Lady of Kmart."

I hope it's clear that the trait I'm describing isn't boorishness or cruelty. Imagination plays a part. Or, to put it another way, you can't take the "smart" out of "smartass." If Annie had simply marched up to her grandmother and uncle and said "You're old!", we would have been less forgiving.

Likewise, she earned points for inventiveness with her variation on sibling name-calling. As her father drove the family home to Milton, Wash., from Seattle, Annie, a new reader, started spelling out words. How cute -- until she surreptitiously segued into a dig at her 9-year-old brother: " A-L-E-X is a B-A-B-Y!" I know, I shouldn't laugh.

Neither should have Brother Benedict, my freshman English teacher at Central Catholic High School, when he came into class on April Fool's Day 1966 and found his place already taken by a faux Christian Brother in a black gown and cardboard collar. Re-enacting one of Brother Benedict's memorable eruptions at a balky student, the fake brother pointed to the door and thundered: "Out!" After a nervous pause, during which we computed possible days in detention, Brother Benedict guffawed. We were safe.

I was the impresario of that impersonation, though I was careful to stay on the sidelines during the performance. It wasn't my first or last such production. When you're cursed with the Smartass Gene, recidivism is hard to resist. And clearly the trait has survived in younger generations. My favorite offbeat feature story of 2003 appeared in The New York Times in November under the un-Timeslike headline "So a Guy Walks Into a School in a Skirt." The story, by Alison Leigh Cowan, is an impressive addition to the annals of smartassery.

NEW MILFORD, Conn. -- Even now, no one is entirely sure why Kevin Dougherty, 15, showed up for school one day last month wearing a floral skirt and matching scarf tied jauntily around his neck. Pantyhose, eye shadow and lipstick completed the look.

When administrators at the high school sent him home for refusing to change clothes, he left, but also called the local newspapers and the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union. Now, nearly two weeks later, the town is still buzzing, though there is no consensus as to whether it was simply a defiant Halloween costume, as school officials and their lawyers maintain, or a constitutionally protected act of protest, as Kevin says.

Lest the reader think Kevin's protest had something to do with transgender rights, the story noted that his usual dress was khakis and Shetland sweaters. Rather, the drag act was a protest against the school's ban on "disruptive clothing." Besides, this wasn't Kevin's first brush with authority. In eighth grade, he got into trouble for a political cartoon he drew in civics class about Catholic Church sex scandals. It showed a priest with a caption saying, "Reach out and touch someone."

More recently, when students were invited to impersonate a famous person for Homecoming, Kevin dressed up as Adolf Hitler -- though after school officials made him remove the swastika and trench coat, he was mistaken by a student for Charlie Chaplin. Perhaps a girl in his class eyeballed him and asked, "What is this? The silent movie section?"

It wouldn't surprise me if Kevin grew up to be a journalist. (His political cartoon was no more offensive than others on the subject that saw the light of print.)

Our business is perhaps uniquely hospitable to grown-up S.A.s. At least in its adversarial, post-Watergate incarnation, journalism prizes two things: skepticism about authority and clever writing.

Maybe Kevin will appear in the 2023 edition of the satirical show put on by the Gridiron Club -- impersonating a female politician, of course.

Kevin might think twice, however, about a political career. Howard Dean may be the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, but he is also the closest thing in the field to a smartass. He hasn't said that George W. Bush is a B-A-B-Y, but he has lashed out in S.A. style at the president and his allies from the Religious Right. "Don't you think that Jerry Falwell reminds you a lot more of the Pharisees than he does the teachings of Jesus?" Dean said at an appearance in Iowa. He is almost equally barbed in his comments about the establishment of his own party.

Dean's smartassery is drawing criticism even from admirers. This week Will Saletan, the chief political correspondent for Slate.com, wrote that Dean needs to learn that "being big means rising above the mischievous glee of mocking your adversary." The headline on the column was "Howard Dean Needs to Grow Up."

So does my niece, but in both cases something will be lost.