For the past few months, gas prices have been incredibly cheap here in Ames and the rest of the country. I was talking to a friend of mine back home about this, and he thinks cheap gas prices are a bad thing.

My friend, whom I’ll call “Mike” because that’s his name, thinks the government should place large taxes on gasoline to raise the price to $3-4 dollars per gallon.

This would force people to drive less and force car companies to make more fuel-efficient cars, which would benefit the environment.

My friend is also crazy. Cheap gas prices are a wonderful thing, especially if you plan to fund your spring break drive to Orlando with the change you find in your couch cushions.

With gas prices currently around 85 cents per gallon, it is one of the cheapest liquids in the world. This is amazing considering all the money and effort that goes into producing gasoline.

To manufacture gasoline, companies must search the globe for oil deposits that are thousands of feet below the surface.

Then they have to spend millions of dollars to build huge oil rigs to extract the oil that then needs to be sent through a high-tech refining process.

Sometimes they even need to deal with wacky Mideast countries such as Qatar, Oman and disputed zone. And according to Texaco commercials, they also need to hire loony scientists in funny hats to run around in the desert licking rocks.

Yet with all that goes into the production of gasoline, a gallon of gas is still cheaper than a two-liter bottle of Pepsi that is made primarily by adding sugar and brown stuff to water.

Economically, it makes no sense why gas is cheaper than pop, but what makes even less sense is that bottled water is more expensive than both of them combined.

Water costs nothing to produce. It is just sitting around waiting to be taken by any yahoo with a bottle. But while people will whine about gas prices when they are over a dollar per gallon, they have no problem paying a buck or more for a 20 ounce bottle of spring water.

I think this is some of our strongest evidence yet that people are stupid. Unless you are getting your water like your cat and drinking it out of the toilet, the water you get from the tap is just as good as any “all- natural” spring water.

And this “all-natural” feature isn’t necessarily the miracle they make it out to be. The bird crap on your car windshield is “all-natural.” Hairy spiders are “all-natural.” The puke in your toilet after a night of heavy drinking is also “all-natural.”

I suppose I can understand purchasing bottled water if there is nothing else available and you really needed it because, say, your hair is on fire.

But I can’t figure out why people will spend their hard earned money on bottled water when there is a very tasty and very free drinking fountain in the same room.

I think this would make a good question on an IQ test. “You have a part-time job scrubbing toilets for $5.00 an hour. You are also hundreds of dollars in debt, but you are thirsty. A man is selling Evian for $1.50 and another man is giving away tap water in dixie cups. What do you do?”

Unfortunately, there are way too many people who would buy the water in this situation. Somehow bottled water manufacturers have convinced broke college students that bottled water is so incredibly better than tap water that it is worth spending actual money on.

To see if I could find out how this amazing feat was accomplished, I called the toll-free number provided by Naya spring water, “the official beverage of everyone who believes in fun, sweat and the pursuit of thirstiness.”

Accidentally, I pressed the wrong button so everything they said was in French. I’m not going to claim to be an expert in French, but I can find France on a map. With this knowledge, I think I was able to translate what the French-speaking Canadian was telling me:

“Ha ha ha, you silly, American fools! You are the only people dumb enough to pay for our water so we can get fat and watch hockey. Ha ha ha!”

I know this column isn’t going to stop anyone from drinking bottled water, so I’ve decided to tap into this market of fools.

Over break I am going to buy a bunch of empty bottles and when I come back I am going to spend my free time filling them with the all-natural waters of Lake LaVerne.

Now, there’s some water that’ll put hair on your chest. All I need to do is make some commercials with people skateboarding off cliffs screaming. Those guys can sell anything.

I guess my point here today is that we should all save money by drinking less water and drinking more gasoline.

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Peter Borchers is a sophomore in advertising from Bloomington, Minn.