This American has declared war on The Frog.

“Justice will be served and the battle will rage
This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage
And you’ll be sorry that you messed with the U. S. of AAAAAAAAAAA

‘Cuz we’ll put a boot in your ass,
It’s the American way!”

--Toby Keith

Some things in life can only be solved by Big Fat Americans. I know I’ve been bitching a lot lately about “The Americans,” and you can say whatever you want about us, but sometimes the world’s biggest assholes have the potential to get the greatest results. I say this with the utmost pride.

So a couple days ago my Aussie roommate, Chilean roommate and I were talking about how weird Europeans are. Because, let’s face it, Europeans are weird. And now today I will spend my first night with my two new EUROPEAN roommates. As I explained earlier, I have been placed in this room to protect the nice French girl from the total bitch of a French girl. To distinguish this French bitch from French Bitch (my boss), my new roommate that I hate will be called The Frog. So anyway, The Frog is the biggest bitch in all of ulpan (and I would wager all of Israel), and she’s been making Nice French Girl’s life miserable.

Well, the ulpan director decided this new living arrangement yesterday. And once I actually got the keys to the room I will have to share with The Frog….I freaked out. Because she really is a terrible person. And part of me was like, “Wait, why am I moving out of a rooming situation I like in order to be with a bitch?” This morning the ulpan director sensed that I was getting cold feet (what is this, a marriage?) and so he called me out of work to have this whole talk with me about how I need to be there to protect Nice French Girl from The Frog. Basically, when it came down to it, I felt like he was Princess Leia and I was Old Ben Kenobi, the only hope and all that. And I gotta admit: I felt like a total badass. He’s basically using me to put a stop to this girl’s reign of terror, and he wants me to cut her down to size. Something to do with the brash American personality. This is a uniquely American job that I’m about to have. This is strangely one of those moments where I’m really proud to be American, because only a big fat American can take on a problem like this. I was proud to be an American, taking on some snobby Eurobitch.

Um, maybe this is a cheesy song moment?

I’m not sure this is what Lee Greenwood had in mind….

So I walked out of our meeting, and Nice French Girl met up with me to discuss what happened. And she said, “If you leave the room, [The Frog] gets what she wants. She wins.” Oh man. That did it. Fuck no, I’m sick of the bitches of the world “winning.” I believe there honestly is justice in the world, and if this bitch wins….then I’m wrong. So that’s not happening.


Needless to say, I’m still a bit freaked out about this new living arrangement. First of all, they’re both European, so….. I don’t know. I don’t know what that means. And then there’s the whole “The Frog is a scary, vindictive bitch” issue. I need an ego boost, so while I was folding laundry today I just kept thinking in my head:

“I am a Big. Fat. Badass. American. Bitch.”

It was really empowering. I feel that as a female who is American it is my responsibility to be nice, sociable, and bake brownies for the “Christ the Savior Church” social one Sunday a month. Or something like that. But I also feel that as an American, it is my obligation to be a pushy bitch when it comes to the situation with The Frog.

I’m actually not even sure I have to TRY to put my foot down. She might run away screaming before I even get my bed made. She was disgusted when she found out I was living with her, because I’m like this gross uncultured American. That’s okay, because I’m disgusted to be living with French people (except for Nice French Girl….). Actually, before I got into a fight with the person I hit, we had an argument over who hates the French more: The Americans or The British (he’s British). I would argue that the British and French just hate each other because they’re longtime rivals, whereas the Americans and the French are just DISGUSTED by each other. Regardless of who’s right, I think we can agree that the Americans and the French as a whole don’t like each other.

I’ve discussed this with Nice French Girl, and we decided that our best hope of getting this girl to run away screaming back to Paris is for me to act like as much of a stereotypical American as possible. Which shouldn’t be too difficult, because I’m already a stereotypical American without trying. But there’s always room for improvement. I think I’ll need someone to send me cowboy boots. And a banjo. Actually, if someone wants to ship over to Israel an entire herd of cattle, I think that would help me make a stronger point in front of The Frog.
Feel free to send me more ideas!


All I can say is, I hope The Frog likes country music.



“Brought to you courtesy of The Red, White and Blue.” –Toby Keith




The only thing I’m worried about is the fact that I know in the heat of battle the words “We saved your asses in World War 2!” are going to slip out of my mouth. Or, alternatively, “If it wasn’t for us, you’d all be speaking German!” This is not a personal belief of mine or anything, but this is simply something Americans always feel compelled to say when arguing with Europeans. It’s usually not even that the American WANTS to say it, it’s just that they simply can’t help it. It’s like a gag reflex. There’s probably some scientific formula out there for it: American + European + Argument = “We saved your asses in World War 2!” We say these things regardless of what we’re arguing about. The American could be the most left-wing peace activist the world has ever seen, and he could be in a debate on the street about the pros/cons of some new but basically unimportant Finnish Poll Tax. The Finnish person might defeat the American by cornering him with some great quote in support of the Poll Tax. The debate could have been perfectly civil and interesting until this point, but once cornered the American will ALWAYS blurt out, “We saved your asses in World War 2!” It’s almost like uncontrollable vomiting or explosive diarrhea.
We say these things to all Europeans, regardless of where they are from. They could be German and we still tell them that “If it wasn’t for us, you’d all be speaking German!” because it doesn’t matter to us. We say these things regardless of what their country was doing in World War 2, even if their country was like on vacation at the time, like say…The Isle of Man. We say it regardless of the fact that the person we’re addressing had nothing to do with WW2, regardless of the European’s having been born four decades after the last battle, and we say it regardless of the fact that we personally were not dropping bombs on any Nazis.

Whatever. All I know is that I’m in it for the long haul. This is a war of wills. I know I was thinking of giving up, bailing out, and surrendering to The Frog…..but then I realized: No, SHE’s the French person, that’s HER job.