Becoming more well-rounded

I moved to California when I was 9. Before that I was a midwesterner born in Nebraska and then spent some time in Michigan too.

During those years, fizzy drink was "pop." Once I moved to California, I went from calling it "pop" to "coke." Everything was coke. Somewhere in my 15 years of living here I graduated to calling it soda. I think that's a much more sensible term for it instead of coke.

In college there was a battle between the "pop" people and the "soda" people. Obviously, those accustomed to breathing fresh air and seeing a sky full of stars called it pop and the rest of us called it soda. Technically isn't it soda pop? So, we're all right. Whatever, to me they're both fine, but pop just sounds funny.

All that to say, tonight I said "pop" involuntarily for the first time in probably 12 years. I wasn't thinking, and it just slipped out.