Weights and measures

A customer and I were talking in the shop today and he was reminiscing about some trouble he'd gotten into several years before. I don't know exactly what it was, but I got the definite impression he'd gone on an "enforced vacation." And then he looked at me and said "Please don't judge me by what I did when I was young and stupid."
And I told him that my yardstick for measuring people is how they treat their dogs. I hadn't really thought about my answer before it came out, but I've decided I like it.