Thank god it’s just “pretend Germany”; I wouldn’t live in real Germany if you paid me. As for “getting out”…say the word, and I’ll leave. I’m counting down the days until 2006.

Sarah,

Why the fuck don’t you leave? But please, oh please, don’t come within 500 kilometers of Australia. We don’t allow imports of toxic waste.

By the way, someone over at Donnie Rumsfeld’s office told me that in Iraq it’s the civilians who give candy to the American troops. Perhaps Sarah should go to Baghdad?

Would you people please stop encouraging this woman to come back to the USA? We really don’t need a person who gets all pissy at little kids because they don’t thank her in the correct language. She’s so vile that she even makes up complaints from the kids about the quality of her candy. They say “danke shon” and she thinks, “I bet they hate me because I’m giving them the wrong candy.” We really have too much of this sort of xenophobia and narcissism already.

Dear Sarah:

I live overseas and you are in a serious down curve moment of the swinging pendulum that is culture shock. I hope you come out of it. Even on an American base it really should not make you very mad that the kids say thank you in German. AT least they are saying thank you at all, which not all kids do these days.

Dear Sadly, No!

Merci Beaucoup for sharing the love.

Hey, Sarah,

Leck mich am Arsch!

And don’t let the door hit you in your Affenschwanz on the way out!

Danke sch?n!

Thing is, Halloween anywhere else in the world isn’t anywhere near the scale of the celebration of it in the US. Most people where I live view it more as a nuisance than anything to celebrate. Is there a danger that you’re expecting your views of other countries to conform to those of the US?

Hey, Sarah, why don’t you sign up to go to the Mess in Mesopotamia? That’d get you out of Germany and away from those ungrateful little bastards.

I’ll bet Iraqi kids would be so grateful for your Halloween candy that they’d thank you in whatever language you like.

I stay away from Miss I Can’t Manage to Grok A Single Thing More Complex Than Peas these days, but I did drop in for her nasty snipe at the German kids who didn’t say thank you in the right language.

They said thank you. They just didn’t say it in English. Can you imagine the depth of ugliness a person’s soul must be in, to mind such a thing?

And to mind such a behavior from *children*?

The Right Wing is in very bad spiritual shape these days.

Well, you reap what you sow.

Wait–she’s stationed in Germany, and is complaining that kids are speaking German to her?

WTF?

If English was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for a bunch of little children trick-or-treating!

“please attempt a thank you. With or without the difficult -th- sound.”

I don’t think they were trying to say *thank* you…

Cheez, getting angry at little kids. It’s amazing how some people can take an opportunity to live in another country, especially a peaceful and prosperous one like Germany, and turn it into an exercise in martyrdom.

Then again, she can’t add either.

Maybe the kids actually were dressed up really well and either went as Germans or as Wayne Newton. Obviously, saying “dnake schon” was just part of the costume.

Really, how petty. It’s actually mind-bogglingly petty.

Hmmm, does she have a mullet too?

Sad that it didn’t even occur to her that the ungrateful little whelps might not speak English. You know, after living their entire lives in Germany speaking German.

So, how good is I Grok Not – and what language is *grok* anyway, droozh? – at speaking German? Vielleicht nicht, denken Sie an?

Or does she just never dare to go off base?

It’s funny, because I was born at Landstuhl, and my parents grew up around Ramstein where their parents were stationed, and they *learned* German and spoke it at home sometimes, and taught me a little.

But they talked about the other kids they knew at the American High School, the ones who weren’t thrilled to death at living near castles and Roman ruins and a train ride away from Paris, the ones who whined all the time about no drive-through hamburger joints and the tunes all being months behind the states and hung out with only fellow Americans and never learned a word of another language.

I couldn’t imagine it, myself – but I guess we know what they turned into when they grew up, huh?

She should feel ingratiated that her nation’s pointless “holiday” has infected Germany at all – most places in the world she wouldn’t have to worry about poorly costumed children infuriatingly determined to speak the local language knocking on her door and begging for artificially flavoured carbohydrates…

I never got trick or treaters at Robinson Barracks in Stuttgart. I always had extra Hoffbrau for them too.

That sucks! I live in Los Angeles and I haven’t gotten a trick-or-treater in four years. I’m moving to Germany, where adorable little children want my candy and even express gratitude.