I never use tubs of margarine. I only use sticks of real butter. I cook and bake a lot, and butter is the only way to go. And given the constraints of butter-sticks, it all depends on whether it's cold and hard, or soft and room-temperature. When it's cold and I'm buttering toast, I'm a scraper. That's the only way to get the butter to melt quickly on your hot toast. If I'm serving corn on the cob, I'm a digger, because I want enough butter on my fork/knife to get the whole cob buttered while a chunk of butter slowly melts all over it. Likewise, if the butter is soft, I'll dig to butter my toast, as a nice glob of soft butter will spread out nicely over the toast in one swoop. And if some ill-mannered cretin has left crumbs on the butter, I'll have to carefully scrape to get them cleaned off, unless he (I'm looking at YOU, Seth!) has been digging in the butter with a crumby utensil, and the whole, mis-shapen stick of butter is a total loss! In which case... I start a sexist tirade about the pitfalls of sharing a house with 2 men!
I use a grater on my butter sticks which I like to keep cold because I have a real issue with bread breaking apart and making crumbs. I guess this makes me weird but the thought of buttering toast and having it all unequally spread just irritates me.
My housemate and I consequently do not share butter, there were arguments over her digging ways.
"A dirty book is rarely dusty"
