Everyone loves Kool-Aid. Or so I thought, growing up in Brockway, Pa., a small town consisting of a stoplight and a McDonalds built in 1995 or so. The first time I made a pitcher of Kool-Aid, I spit it right back out. It was disgusting — how the heck did I mess up powder, sugar and water? My mother then took me aside and told me the trick — she puts in a cup and a half of sugar instead of the directed single cup. So I added some more and voila, I had the best cup of lemonade made outside of a 12-year-old's stand.

From that day, I never really gave much thought to the consistency of powdered drinks. I stopped playing with Barbies, graduated high school (there was a gap of time in between those, you know) and started college. Dorm life didn't give you much training grounds for a career as a gourmet chef, but the micro-fridges were at least big enough for a carton of milk, some randomly aged salsa and a pitcher of Kool-Aid. I was in charge of non-dairy beverages and kept lemonade Kool-Aid (the yellow package, not the pink one) in the fridge almost regularly. One day, my roommate watched me make a pitcher.

"Whoa, girl," she suddenly exclaimed. "Exactly how much sugar do you put in your Kool-Aid, anyway?"

"Um, about a cup and a half," I answered. "Maybe a little more if it's lemonade." I looked at her quizzically. "Isn't that normal?" I wondered. She then informed me that most people only put the advised one-cup. A neighbor then chimed in that she prefers a cup and a quarter or so. A little floor research quickly informed me that some people like a cup and a third, some only like three-quarters cup and some just throw in whatever feels right.

What was going on here? My world as I had known it for the past 20 or so years was suddenly spilling on the already stained Wal-Mart carpet covering the cold linoleum floor. Okay, well maybe not exactly — we only spilled a little Kool-Aid that night, but, still, a lesson was learned. You wouldn't cry over spilled milk, right — or spilled Kool-Aid for that matter. But we definitely cry, or maybe whine is a better word, over a whole lot of the other things.

A lot of people say soda here. That's as foreign to me as short hair is to Billy Ray Cyrus (don't tell my heart, my achy break heart). I am from pop country, the kind of place where simply saying soda automatically classifies you as snooty city folk, much like how pop sayers are considered dumb bumpkins.

Okay, so you want to be a dork and say soda, go ahead. Just don't yell at me when I say pop. It sounds trivial, but it's true. I have been cornered on my beverage beliefs many a time (sometimes in dark, scary places like Players after midnight). And I wonder, why does it really bother people, infuriate them, eat away at their souls, if I ask for a pop, instead of the saint-like soda?

It is either because they are afraid that we pop people will take over the world or because they just need more chemistry problems to do or something. And you'd never think that I would've been yelled at for being a vegetarian. Yes, I did say yelled at — and many a time as well.

Or for others, it's wearing white after Labor Day, not drinking mass quantities of Beast on the weekends (or during the week for that matter) or enjoying protesting instead of partying. And while we, the cool kids, may find these things bizarre, do they really ruin the college routine (class, class, eat, class, sleep, skip class, Chili's)?

For crying out loud, or quietly for that matter, this is college — Penn State University to be exact. We are long past the years of Billy getting laughed at for not having Pump sneakers or 'lil Ricky being outcasted for not having a favorite New Kid. As sophisticated college kids, we have the duty to no longer publicly humiliate someone for wearing white socks with black shoes, dancing the Macarena or requesting Barry Manilow at a frat party (hey, it's not unusual. . .). By now, we should have acquired the social grace to contain our laughter — at least until the weirdoes are out of earshot.

So, kids, the moral of this story is that we should try to be more tolerant of others. If your roommate really likes watching Zesty chair exercises, then let her watch it. If your neighbor cooks roadkill-ish dishes at 4 a.m., then plug your nose.

If you pass some Amish somewhere in Bellefonte, don't shout out obscenities — horses are faster then you know these days. It's our right as flag-flying Americans to be bizarre. And you never know when you'll be late for class and out of clothes and have to go to class in that Pokemon shirt your grandma bought you — and your five year old brother.