Where's the Consistency?

Check this out: Someone you know, say a close friend or family member, a lady who's always taken great pains to present herself in the best possible light--evidenced by her well-maintained figure, impeccably manicured nails and latest fashionable coif--exhibits a totally off-putting tendency each and every lunchtime. Indeed, this woman with the strict regimen of skin care routines, Botox injections and spa dates, has a blind spot the size of Utah when it comes to dining etiquette. Yeah, we're talkin' crust throwing, as in picking apart the outer layers of sourdough bread holding her club sandwich together and tossing them willy-nilly all onto the restaurant floor, without a hint of subtlety, not a care in the world.  That's right, you, the wait staff and a concerned dining public watch in shock and awe as this otherwise seemingly pleasant woman, all smiles and small talk, takes a bite here and a bite there before, yet, another crust launch... Pretty inconsistent, right?

Or how 'bout this: A long-time work associate, a man whose earned the trust of his colleagues for decades, the person everyone goes to for sage advice--often referred to as a "salt of the earth" guy, a real mensch--displays a whole other side of himself in the yearly company golf outing.  Indeed, this earnest fella with the honest and sincere demeanor, this dude with the trusting persona seems to have a lapse in judgment when out on the links. Yeah, we're talkin' cheating. How else do you explain balls being hooked and sliced wildly into the woods, water, and out-of-bounds areas miraculously turning up in play with a clear shot to the green each and every time?  Or his math, usually spot-on when calculating a waiter's gratuity or an expected return on an investment, sadly lacking here when tallying up his scores,  constantly turning triple bogies into bogies and double bogies into pars... Again, pretty inconsistent, right?

So, yeah, all this leads me to floss sticks, those plastic single-use dental tools you can purchase by the gross at any Walmart, Target or CVS.  They're cheap, convenient and disposable, just the gadget necessary for those personal hygiene-conscious individuals who don't want to wait until they're home and in the comfort of their own bathroom to take care of their oral grooming.  And using 'em ensures that  those they come in contact with directly afterwards aren't subject to the remnants of an earlier consumed spinach salad lodged between their cuspid and incisor.  Indeed, pretty commendable behavior, except for a certain percentage of these ostensibly conscientious folks who top off this maneuver by opting to throw their now germed-up device onto public grounds without giving it a thought.  Yeah, we're talkin' litterers, responsible for trashing our streets, sidewalks, hills and dales with scummy, decaying food products clinging to flimsy little one-stringed harp-looking gizmos... Once more, pretty damn inconsistent, right?

Okay, truth be told, I've never come in contact with anyone fitting the bill of the well-presented bread tosser or the "salt of the earth" golfing cheat, although certainly somewhere these anomalies must co-exist. But the debris cast aside by these dental utensil polluters is omnipresent, and it's different than discarded soda cans, fast food wrappers or plastic bags, because when people make an effort to purchase floss sticks, they are proving that they are prideful, caring individuals.  At least, when it comes to grooming. And yet, moments later, they're exhibiting a "screw you, citizenry" mentality by trashing the countryside?  I mean, how does that even jive?  So, yeah, it's the inconsistency of it all that has these delinquents living-rent free inside my head every time I spot one of their used dental morsel dislodgers callously strewn about the landscape.

Look, we go through life thinking that if we keep our eyes peeled and our head on a swivel, we'll eventually get the lay of the land and develop reliable expectations for the future.  So when inconsistencies occur with an individual, it tends to pull the rug out from under us, causing us to wonder if we really ever had a handle on that person at all.  And, if not, how far off are we on others?  Or anything, for that matter?  That's right, it's a slippery slope, people.  You can't trend in one direction and then pull a one-eighty out of the blue.  Bottom line: keep it consistent, if you care about presentation, stop with the crust tossing. If you really are a menche, nix the cheating.  And if you're conscientious about your grooming, my God, man, stop the littering already!

Look, I'm the kind of guy who prides himself on coming up with a button in the last paragraph of his blog to tie the whole piece together.  What would you think if I suddenly stopped right here without finishing up my thought?