The Tourist Prayer
Aug 8th, 2006, 11:47 PM
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The Tourist Prayer
The Tourist Prayer
Heavenly Father, look down on us, your humble 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 honoured, our rooms made up and the hot water running from the correct tap if at all. We pray that the telephone works, that the operator speaks our tongue and that there is no message waiting from our children which would force us to cancel the rest of the 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 undertipping out of ignorance and overtipping out of fear. Make the natives love us for who we are and not for what they can screw out of us.
Grant us the strength to visit museums, cathedrals, palaces and castles listed as "musts" in guidebooks, and if perchance we skip a historic monument to take a
nap after lunch, have mercy on us, for our flesh is weak.
For husbands only:
Dear God, keep our wives from shopping sprees and protect them from bargains which they neither need nor can afford. Lead them not into temptation for they know not what they do.
For wives only:
Almighty Father, keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and comparing them with us. Save them from making fools of themselves in cafes and nightclubs. Above all please do not forgive them their trespasses for they know exactly what they do.
Together:
And when our voyage is over and we return to our loved ones, grant us the favour of finding willing audiences and a sympathetic ear for our stories, so that our lives as tourists shall not have been in vain.
Amen
Heavenly Father, look down on us, your humble 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 honoured, our rooms made up and the hot water running from the correct tap if at all. We pray that the telephone works, that the operator speaks our tongue and that there is no message waiting from our children which would force us to cancel the rest of the 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 undertipping out of ignorance and overtipping out of fear. Make the natives love us for who we are and not for what they can screw out of us.
Grant us the strength to visit museums, cathedrals, palaces and castles listed as "musts" in guidebooks, and if perchance we skip a historic monument to take a
nap after lunch, have mercy on us, for our flesh is weak.
For husbands only:
Dear God, keep our wives from shopping sprees and protect them from bargains which they neither need nor can afford. Lead them not into temptation for they know not what they do.
For wives only:
Almighty Father, keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and comparing them with us. Save them from making fools of themselves in cafes and nightclubs. Above all please do not forgive them their trespasses for they know exactly what they do.
Together:
And when our voyage is over and we return to our loved ones, grant us the favour of finding willing audiences and a sympathetic ear for our stories, so that our lives as tourists shall not have been in vain.
Amen
