According to a recent quality of service survey that was released on Friday by the Ames public relations department, the city received a nearly unanimous positive response.

Across the board, 99 percent of 190 students, long-time residents, homemakers, business people and retirees rated the quality of service in Ames as either “good” or “very good.”

99 percent!

That’s pretty good when you consider that if most cities get 60 percent of respondents to be this pleased, they would be ecstatic.

The top complaints this year are the same as last year.

Street repairs top the bill. This has been and will continue to be a long-running concern, as well it should be in the Midwest.

Hard to imagine any Midwestern town which would not have this problem, what with the winter months wreaking such havoc.

Not surprisingly, the attitude of the Ames Police Department was a major concern in this sample, which did include students.

The question is: How does Ames manage to rank so highly among such a representative sample when the major complaints among those responding have not significantly changed?

It seems highly unlikely that even mythological cities would receive ratings this high.

When you consider that the police camp out on Campustown’s poorly maintained streets looking to foist some attitude on Ames’ primary money-making industry (students), it doesn’t seem possible that this many people could be this happy living in Ames.

It is actually possible for college towns to co-exist with their meal-ticket student populations without resorting to the kind of tactics usually reserved for penitentiary lockdown.

How scientific can this survey be?

If St. Peter got a 99 percent favorable response from residents in heaven, he would probably think that was a bit too good to be true.

The average number of people who complain about everything just to hear themselves complaining should make a score this high improbable if not impossible.

So next time you see something that looks too good to be true, just remember: it probably is.