There are a few things in this world that we’re sure about.

We’re sure you shouldn’t swim in Lake LaVerne.

We’re sure you should eat your vegetables.

We’re sure you should Campanile regularly.

We’re sure you should get more exercise than the recliner can offer.

And — this truly is a newsflash — we’re sure you should wash your hands after doing your business in the bathroom.

But here’s the kicker: We’re also sure you should use soap. That’s right friends; the surgeon general’s branch office at the Iowa State Daily has spoken. Wash those hands good with products designed to cleanse.

We hold this knowledge to be self evident, right up there with life, liberty and the pursuit of all that other stuff. We thought everybody knew this.

We were wrong.

If you do your business in the bathrooms at the Union Drive Association residence halls, you’ll find a key ingredient missing from the soap-and-water combination: soap. There’s no Dial, no Safeguard, no Soft Scrub, no Ivory, no Irish Spring, not even some squirty stuff.

To find some soap you’ve got to pray to the shower god that there’s some broken bits still hanging around the drains. This isn’t always a happy process.

Some students are raising a stink, something they’re in a position to do. They want soap.

We think they should have it.

But we’re not really sure why it takes a movement to get some pretty common sense hygiene stuff. Oh well.

The important thing is that the soap may be on its way.

Randy Alexander, ISU’s top residence hall dog, wants soap dispensers in all the residence hall bathrooms by next semester. This is a good thing. Maybe in the meantime Alexander could ship a few bars over as a gesture of good will. Drain soap only goes so far.