Don't worry about me, I'm OK-ish

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a good person — neither am I a particularly bad person. I'm just OK-ish.

I'll admit to that.

Pam Burke

If you need examples, then, for example, I harbor no ill-will nor ill-intent toward small children or puppies. But I have to admit that neither do I spend my free time knitting plastic, electrical-outlet covers for under-experienced children or puppies whose only desire is to create an industrial-type accident by inserting a tiny appendage where a plug-in don't shine.

Not that I encourage such behavior either, y'know.

If, for another example, a small child or a puppy were to pick up an inflated balloon, I would not pop it just to make them cry. However — and don't judge me — should either the child or the puppy accidentally pop the balloon and inadvertently startle a squeak out of themselves, that would be alright with me.

I'd laugh. Yes, I would. And I have.

Judge me if you will, but before you arrive at your final verdict, you should know that I claim bonus points for the fact that I have always picked up the pieces of popped balloon so no one would choke on them or have to deal with the unsightly litter.

So here I am, somewhere in a limbo between angels and demons, where I've been interviewing for a series of articles all these incredible people who volunteer in our communities, and the experience has been making me question the basic values under which I govern my OK-ishness.

I understand that these wonderful volunteers are just regular people, but I feel a little tarnished and like, well, a mouth-breathing waste of time by comparison. Not that they were less-than good to me by saying anything. They were all nice ... and, of course, I didn't tell them that I'm only an OK-ish person. No sense in opening my personal baggage while I'm pretending to be a professional reporter, right.

Still, I was starting to have doubts about myself.

Then I read about our United States Postal Service suing retired cycling racer Lance Armstrong and his company Tailwind Sports because Armstrong had lied to USPS officials and the public about using illegal performance-enhancement drugs from 1998 to 2004. During that six-year period USPS paid Armstrong and company $40 million dollars as a team sponsor.

Did you catch that? What I just wrote there?

A branch of our federal government — which is now looking to shut down offices in rural areas due to lack of funding — paid about $6.67 million per year for about six years to some guy and his buddies to ride their bikes in awesome places all over the world as an image-enhancing PR ploy for an organization that everybody knows about.

And the guy turned out to be a lying liar so USPS doesn't look so much good by association right now.

After reading the news, I vaguely remembered seeing Armstrong and company wearing USPS uniforms, but I can't recall having a clue at the time that it was costing $6.67 mega-millions to logo-enhance that spandex.

Those guys didn't even deliver any mail from their bicycles like a decent pony express rider would've.

Which brings me to the idea that I hope USPS wins their money back, and I really, really, really hope that as part of their sentence Armstrong and company — along with the officials at USPS who authorized this advertising disaster — have to spend a year delivering mail from the back of an old-style velocipede.

Sure that sounds mean, but I figure it still keeps me right smack in the middle between the really nice local volunteers and the lying cheaters.

And you know what? I'm pretty OK-er with myself than I've ever been.

(I wonder how much sponsorship swag the underrated sport of underwater-basketweaving would get me at http://viewnorth40.wordpress.com.)