My younger sister is at the point in her high school career where every college in the universe is sending her garbage about why they are the finest institute in the world.

Iowa State is no exception, and one of the big highlights of Iowa State University (according to the brochure they send out) is Lake LaVerne.

I remember when I was getting the same stuff a few years ago.

In fact, from what I had read, Lake LaVerne sounded like a tropical paradise.

I got so excited I packed my swim trunks, my wet suit, and started figuring out how I was going to fit a jet ski in my dorm room.

Finally, with my gear ready, I headed off for my first year at ISU.

Imagine my disappointment when I realized that the beautiful lake I had heard so much about was just a cruddy little puddle in front of the Memorial Union.

Not only were my dreams of picking up beautiful women in bikinis crushed, I was forced to use my jet ski as a $4000 TV stand.

Having lived in Minnesota all my life, my standards of what does and does not qualify as a lake may be a little high.

But to me, giving LaVerne the title of “Lake” just makes the university look stupid.

I was curious about what officially constitutes a lake, so I looked up the definition in the dictionary.

According to Webster’s, “lake” is defined as “a large inland body of usually fresh water.”

Under this definition, LaVerne is woefully unqualified to be a lake.

First of all, Lake LaVerne is not large.

If it was large, I wouldn’t be able to skip rocks in and hit people on the other side.

Secondly, Lake LaVerne does not contain “fresh water.”

In case you didn’t see Friday’s paper, a student contracted dermatitis from jumping in the lake after the Ball State game. I’m guessing fresh water was not the cause.

Based on this evidence, I felt I had been deceived by the university. I thought they had flat-out lied to me about LaVerne.

Based on this definition, it was clearly not a lake.

But then Webster’s second definition of “lake” caught my eye: “2. a pool of oil or other liquid.”

A-ha!!

Now it all makes sense.

Much like Bill Clinton, the university was being misleading, but legally never told a lie.

This definition may hold the key to unlocking one of the biggest scandals of all time here at ISU.

There isn’t much water in the scuzz-hole we call Lake LaVerne.

No, it must be filled with oil and other liquids.

The evidence is right in front of our faces, when you think about it.

First, a lake in central Iowa is like a naked woman in the men’s locker room.

It may look nice, but you know there is something suspicious going on.

Next, I look to the swans.

Have you ever noticed how they are never actually in the lake?

I think this means they know something we don’t.

Swans need lakes to survive. Yet the university has to clip their wings and fence them in to prevent them from fleeing the only lake in Story County.

This can only be a bad sign.

Finally, just look at the lake for yourself.

It has a visibility of less than a foot.

Using Homer Simpson’s water clarity criteria, Lake LaVerne is well beyond the “if it’s brown, drink it down,” category and well into “if it’s black, send it back,” territory.

And getting back to the kids who jumped in the lake after the football game — they came out of that lake dirtier than the kids who were wrestling in the mud.

Yet despite how dingy and small Lake LaVerne is, the university continues to promote it as one of the top reasons to come to our school.

I don’t know if anyone from the public relations department has been to any other colleges, but most of them have lakes that are bigger (even though they are appropriately called “ponds”) and that don’t infect people.

So face the facts, people — unless we are going to start bragging about our football record or our vast abundance of large lecture halls, maybe we should stop praising our “pool of oil or other liquid” we call Lake LaVerne.

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