the tourist prayer
THE TOURIST PRAYER by Art Buchwald Heavenly Father, look down onto us your humble obedient tourist servants who are doomed to travel this Earth taking photographs, mailing postcards, buying souvenirs, and walking around in drip-dry underwear. We beseech you oh Lord, to see that our plane is not hijacked, our luggage is not lost, and our overweight baggage goes unnoticed. Protect us from surly and unscrupulous taxi drivers, avaricious porters, and unlicensed English-speaking guides. Give us this day divine guidance in the selection of our hotels, that we may find our reservations honored, our rooms made up, and hot water running from the faucets - if it is at all possible. We pray that the telephones work and that the operators speak our tongue, and that there is no mail waiting from our children which could force us to cancel the rest of our trip. Lead us, dear Lord to good inexpensive restaurants where the food is superb, the waiters friendly, and the wine included in the price of the meal. Give us the wisdom to tip correctly in currencies we do not understand. Forgive us for under tipping out of ignorance and over tipping out of fear. Make the natives love us for what we are and not for what we can contribute to their worldly goods. Grant us the strength to visit the museums, the cathedrals, the palaces and the castles listed as musts in the guidebooks. And if per chance we skip an historic monument to take a nap after lunch, have mercy on us, for our flesh is weak. HUSBANDS Dear God. Keep our wives from shopping sprees and protect them from bargains they do not need or can’t afford. Lead them not into temptation for they know not what they do. WIVES Almighty God. Keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and comparing them to us. Save them from making fools of themselves in cafes and nightclubs. Above all, please do not NOT forgive their trespasses, for they know exactly what they do. ALL TOGETHER And when our voyage is over, and we return to our loved ones, grant us the favor of finding someone who will look at our home movies and listen to our stories so our lives as tourists will not have been in vain. This we ask of you in the name of Conrad Hilton, Thomas Cook, and CRYSTAL CRUISES. AMEN