It's OK to be just OK sometimes

While I waited on my debit card to be approved, my eyes wandered toward the end of checkout area.

“Tell us how we’re doing,” the card implored. I read on, intending to find the answer to the only question that matters in these instances: Is there a prize drawing for doing this?

I never found out. My eyes rolled too hard from the next sentence for me to go on.

“If you score us below a 9/10 on any area, please ask to speak with our management immediately.”

Good news for management: They’re getting five minutes off, because I’m not taking the survey.

On a survey I did take for a different merchant, I marked down “satisfied” in one category. Later on ... “We see you were satisfied under category H. Could you take a minute and tell us why you weren’t absolutely satisfied?

I’m still happy with my response: “I found what I wanted, the prices were fair and everybody was friendly to me. I’m satisfied, I plan to come back and purchase things from you again. I don’t see a need to beat down management doors because I’m not absolutely satisfied, whatever that means.”

It’s like when Demi Moore’s lawyer character Jo in “A Few Good Men” said the defense “strenuously objects” after the judge overrules the first objection. Oh, you strenuously object? Then I’ll take some time and reconsider.

These surveys are the online version of the interaction that goes south whenever somebody asks me how I am and I tell them I’m OK.

“Why are you just OK?”

The answer to that going forward: I don’t consider OK to be a bad word. It just means the day is somewhere between average and satisfactory. I assure you if there was something wrong and you were in a position to improve the situation, I’d do my best to politely inform you.

I think everybody can relate to that time somebody asked what was wrong, and nothing was wrong ... until the fourth or fifth time they asked.

“What’s wrong?” Nothing, I say. Repeat scenario three times in the next 20 minutes until my reply is, “I’m fine, drop it.”

They move in for the kill. “I KNEW it. You ARE upset about something. What is it?”

“Well, there’s this friend who repeatedly insists there’s something wrong with me, and doesn’t take me at my word that everything is OK. And I’m wondering if they’re projecting their pessimism onto me.”

It would have been creepy if Michael Jackson released “Smooth Criminal II,” where he asked Annie why she was just OK.

Not every day is a 10. There are days that are OK, and that’s OK. We need a 7 or an 8 once in a while, because how can we gain an appreciation for the days that are truly a 10? Let’s worry about the people who aren’t OK before we start interrogating the people who are.

But how am I doing, you ask? Let’s just say I’m strenuously satisfied, and I hope I win the prize drawing.

Kevin Wilson is managing editor for the Clovis office of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at: [email protected]