The first question you should ask when you get new roommates is, "What is your policy on milk?"

OK, maybe not the VERY first question. "What's your name?" should probably come first, and depending on the circumstances of your meeting, "You're not going to play Rock Band, like, ALL DAY, are you?" might also be an important one.

But coming to an early understanding of how the milk supply will be handled in your shared refrigerator is helpful. In fact, I've learned from sad experience that ambiguity in the matter can lead to mistrust, mudslinging and even enemy factions being formed within the apartment.

The problem comes down to a difference in ideology.

Andrew, for example, is strongly in favor of communal milk: When one of us notices that we are running low, we go out and buy a gallon. No need for reimbursement or taking turns. We all take care of each other out of love, not obligation. I fill your cereal bowl, you fill mine, and we all live happily ever after in a Steinbeck-style dairy utopia. This is socialism in its purest, most idealistic form. This is the kind of socialism people refer to as "groovy."

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Hunter.  He does not like it when people touch his things. They are HIS things, after all. If YOU want things, get a job and buy them yourself! He is especially appalled by the idea of people wrapping their lips around his things and drinking them. Not only does he think that everyone in the apartment should buy their own milk, but, ideally, he would have a lockable minifridge where he can stash the milk he bought with his own hard-earned money. He is an unabashed libertarian when it comes to the beverage that accompanies his cookies.

Me? I would describe myself as a compassionate conservative. I think every roommate should be responsible for purchasing as much milk as he plans on consuming. But if Taylor finds himself drooling over the bowl of Cocoa Puffs he just poured only to find out that his gallon is empty, I don't mind him reaching for mine.

For the first couple of months of the semester, these different ideologies seemed to peacefully coexist. Sure, there were the occasional tense moments -- when we would catch each other pouring milk from a gallon that clearly did not belong to the pourer -- but the rule remained undefined, and we all seemed to look the other way.

Then one morning, the issue was forced to the front lines of apartment debate.

All of us were eating breakfast together and I casually mentioned that it seemed like the gallon of milk I had bought with Hunter was disappearing faster than we were using it. As I said it, Neil opened the refrigerator door, pulled out our gallon and, in direct defiance of the eggshell diplomacy we had nurtured for so long, he sarcastically joked, "Huh, I wonder how that happened." Then he emphatically poured the coveted commodity into his bowl.

For Hunter, this meant war.

Of course, the war currently being waged in our apartment is more of a cold war. There have been no blatant attacks so far (i.e. sabotaging the enemy's bread loaf by leaving it open on the counter), but there have been droughts. Now that trust has been breached, nobody wants to be the one to replenish the milk when the refrigerator runs dry. This results in milkless standoffs where everyone is waiting for someone else to crack and drive to the grocery store.

In an attempt to manage the crisis, I have tapped my parents' obscene surplus and brought a gallon back to Provo every time I go home to Alpine for Sunday dinner. But these gallons rarely last more than a day or two, and the fleeting taste of milk seems only to strengthen each party's resolve.

We all anxiously await the day we can successfully live the law of consecration -- when the lamb and the lion can lie down together without any ire, when our beverage of choice flows freely from the land of milk and honey, and when roommates live harmoniously in a blessed state of Zion.

But in the meantime, I think the Thanksgiving holiday will provide a much-needed break. It will allow us all to cool off, try to see the other side's point of view, and come up with a reasonable solution. After all, Christmas is right around the corner, and I'd hate to see what happens if we have to bring eggnog into this partisan battle.