STEPPING BACK FROM DOUBLE STANDARDS
When I came out of the dentist’s office recently, the bits on my tooth that had been irritating my tongue were gone… but I still felt irritated.
That’s because the lady who had cleaned my teeth charged one-and-a-half times the normal fee.
That might seem fair since I’d asked her to grind off the rough remains of dental cement that used to attach a bridge to one of my teeth, and that’s not part of a normal cleaning. But the extra work took less than two minutes… and the reason the bridge isn’t there anymore is that six months ago, a dentist yanked two more teeth from my mouth.
They were the ninth and tenth to go, so I only had 22 left to clean… which is about twothirds of a full set. So, in fact, the oral hygienist had less work to do overall. If I’m going to get charged for extra work, wouldn’t you think I should have been given a discount for all those gaps that didn’t need to be cleaned?
Okay, that’s not how it works, but the practice used double standards to charge extra, which is why I left in a grumpy mood. Of course, double standards that don’t affect us directly aren’t nearly so irritating, which is probably a double standard itself.
For example; I know a woman who thinks her in-laws should spend twice as much at Christmas on her only child as they do on her nieces and nephews because her husband’s sisters and brother have two chil
dren each. She doesn’t, however, carry that reasoning through to spending more on him herself the rest of the year. That could be seen as humorous.
Sports commentators provide plenty of examples as well, especially when it is clear which team they back. I got an example of that when I watched Chelsea play Porto in the first leg of a Champions League quarter final.
With Chelsea leading 1-0, a blues defender shoved a Porto striker off the ball in the penalty area as he was dribbling towards goal and I was sure it was
a penalty. The two British TV commentators who were calling the game for mainly British viewers, however, didn’t see it that way, even though they felt less contact by Porto players outside the box warranted freekicks for the English team.
But then again, maybe these things just come down to our points of view. I mean, maybe the fact that I was routing for Porto affected my view of the penalty shout as much as a proChelsea view affected the commentators. The referee, by the way, didn’t award a penalty and I left out that fact earlier because it didn’t help my argument.
And maybe the lady who wants more from her relatives for her son feels guilty about how much she can do for him, which, of course, isn’t funny at all. So, maybe instead of worrying about other people’s double standards and just seeing how they affect us, we should try to step back so we can see the bigger picture and see if we are being consistent ourselves.
Okay, I’ve done that… and you know what? I’m still irritated about my teeth.