Reactions from around the neighborhood to Herta Mueller winning the Nobel Prize in Literature

"I don't know if I ever mentioned that I've always been a huge Mueller fan. I'm president of the Muller fan club in Polk County." -- Jeff the mailman

"My local book seller thinks I'm a real pain in the neck because I camp out on his doorstep on the eve of publication of every Herta Mueller book. Been doing it for years. Sometimes he calls the cops." -- Willem the butcher

"Every time I go into my local bookstore, I trip over a big pile of Herta Mueller books, it's getting to be a problem. And anytime you want to talk to the farmers at the local coffee shop about soybean crops and crop rotation, all they want to talk about is Herta Mueller. I'm sick of her." -- Kenny the alderman

"I went into the bookstore this morning and tripped over a stack of Herta Mueller books, as usual. Next, I went to Burger King, with the new Philip Roth novel under my arm. Everyone looked up from their Herta Mueller novels and glared at me. Crack-heads, truants, junkies, nitwits and pinheads, the kind of person who hangs around Burger King on a Friday morning at 10 a.m. (Myself excepted.) I perceived store-wide hostility as I slowly turned to the first page of the Roth book. I heard titters and jeers. Finally, a swarthy Negro wearing eleven parkas and 48 layers of clothing in 60-degree weather came over to my table and asked what kind of chump-ass shit was I reading when his Main Writer be winning the Nobel Prize. I fled the restaurant ahead of cries of Jew-loving punk and jive-ass pseudo-intellectual-capitalist-traditionalist-honkie-motherfucker. . . . Tough room in the age of Herta." -- Dalton, former mayor

While in the video store, Kathy the notary public was advised to watch the comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous, to which she replied, "Is this the Drop Dead Gorgeous directed by Akira Kurosawa, with a screenplay by Samuel Beckett, based on a novel by Herta Mueller?"

"I tried to get my car winterized today and the guy at Jiffy Lube was too busy reading Herta Mueller to help me. So I went across the street to McDonald's and instead of asking me if I wanted fries with my order, she said 'Do you want Herta Mueller with that?' 'Hell yes, super-Herta me!'" -- Zeb the dogcatcher