This is a great travel thread! <BR>Thought I would share this with all of you! <BR> <BR>Enjoy! <BR> <BR> PRAYER FOR TOURIST <BR> <BR>Heavenly Father, look down on 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. <BR> <BR>Give us this day divine guidance in the selection of our hotels, that we may find our reservations honored, our room made up and hot water running from the faucets. <BR> <BR>We pray that the telephones work, and the operators speak our tongue. <BR> <BR>Lead us, dear Lord, to good, inexpensive restaurants where the food is superb, the waiters friendly and the wine included in the price. <BR> <BR>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 what we are, not for what we can contribute to their worldly goods. <BR> <BR>Grant us the strenght to visit the museums, the cathedrals, the palaces and castles listed as "musts" in the guidebooks. <BR> <BR>And if perchance we skip a historic monument to take a nap after lunch, have mercy on us, for our flesh is weak. <BR> <BR> FOR HUSBANDS ONLY <BR> <BR>Dear God, keep our wives from shopping sprees and protect them from bargins' they don't need or can't afford. Lead them not into temptation for they know not what they do.! <BR> <BR> FOR WIVES ONLY <BR> <BR>Almighty Father, keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and comparing them to us. Save them from making fools of themselves in cafes and night clubs. Above all do not forgive them their trespasses for they know exactly what they do. <BR> <BR>By Art Buchwald <BR> <BR>My Very Best and Happy Travels! <BR> <BR>Oaktown

I'm a woman and I tell you you'd have to take a gun to my head to MAKE me go shopping. I despise all shopping and completely lack understanding for anyone who spends any time shopping on a trip. This sterotype about women always shopping is so annoying to me. <BR>

Gail: <BR> <BR>Did any of the rest of it make you smile? <BR> <BR>My Best& Happy Travels <BR>Oaktown

Oaktown: It made ME smile! Sorry it took a sniper to bring it to the top. (Yeah, I know, we're all entitled to our opinion.)

I can understand Gail completely. Women are always being treated as though they are a constant financial drain on men even when it comes to making a joke about a holiday. <BR> <BR>This old idea that all women do all the time is shop and spend their mens money is ridiculous. This thread has inplied criticism of women for wasting money. When it comes to the bit about the men it still rebounds on women because it talks of men looking at other other women on holiday. How funny is that? Combined with the fact that it is also offensive to Christians.

Gail.. <BR> <BR>Marry Me, Marry Me, Marry Me. <BR> <BR>From "Kiss Me Kate" I think. <BR>

Holly and Buzzy: <BR> <BR>Sorry, I was out shopping. Now, where were we? <BR> <BR>Buzzy I am a Christian and I do not see where any offense is present. Can you share what strikes you or other Christians as offensive? <BR> <BR>I don't know but I see so much more in this poem than criticism of women. <BR>What about the other 7/8ths of the poem for "all" tourist? <BR> <BR>I am just curious. I got this as a gift and maybe I missed something... <BR> <BR>Happy Travels <BR>Oaktown

For the record, the man in my life shops more than I do, he can't resist a good sale, a total clothes horse. But I still enjoyed the "prayer" even though the gender behaviors depicted are from the fifties...! <BR> <BR>Marlena

It is offensive to Christians because it mocks The Lord's Prayer. Many religions would certainly not tolerate prayers and words from important religious text being altered like this. If you were mocking a Muslim or Jewish prayer it would not be tolerated would it?

Buzzy, <BR> <BR>It is fautly logic that, because it offends you, and you are a Christian, then it offends Christians. You are entitled to your opinion, but don't lump the rest of us Christians in with you by making gross generalizations. <BR> <BR>I wasn't offended, and I'm Christian, so I by your logic, I guess it doesn't offend Christians.

Yes I know the world wants us all to ease up on so many things.The plain fact is that unless we keep some things sacred we are on a slippery slope. I personally am so used to seeing this type of mockery that I am not shocked or offended by it anymore.I do beleive, however, that we should not be encouraging each other to laugh at or alter accepted religious text. The points made by the original post could just as easily have been made in another way without touching on the Lord's Prayer at all. Read it again is it really that funny? I would have thought that today's humour is much more sophisticated than that.

My post seems to have vanished, so I'll try again and sorry if it reappears out of nowhere: <BR> <BR>This is as old as a rerun of Mayberry RFD. And anytime you have "For wives/husbands only," you're likely to get outdated cliches left over from the era of Dagwood and Blondie. Somebody tell O.T. and Buchwald I stopped wearing high-heels to vacuum in 1959 and you can't pry my husband out of a sporting equipment store.

GUYS...IT IS ONLY HUMOUR...must have intrigued you to read on...life is too short to get upset or put off by every comment, don't waste your time or energy on this and spend more of it on positive things like travelling! YEA! <BR> <BR>Oaktown...it did make me smile...I am a woman and for me.... I smile and move on when I read funny, offensive, racist, negative comments!

Oaktown, once again you have offended me with your gerneralizations and outdated attitudes. Aren't you the person who still talks about being a cheerleader in highschool? Good gracious, woman, get a life and new perspective on the women of today!

Look out! Oaktown's on the move. Same post, "Grayhaired," on two different forums! See you found her both places. <BR> <BR>Yeah, the "shopping" stereotype is tired. And considering how hard you American capitalists fight to preserve an economy based on ever-expanding consumption, I'd think you'd canonize shoppers, anyway.

Most humor puts down something--one self, gender, race, etc. It is very difficult to do any humor without the possibility of offending somebody. So I guess the safest method is never to use humor, especially in a public forum where surely someone out there would take offense.

Sorry, Tony, but it's possible to be very funny without putting anyone down. Word play, absurdity, even slapstick -- all good examples. The funniest stuff helps us laugh at life, not at others. <BR> <BR>"How do you know an elephant's been in your refrigerator? Because of the footprints in the Jell-O!" <BR> <BR>If you are an American, do you know Steven Wright? I think he's very funny and I challenge you to find any ethnic or gender humor there. It's all the absurd. People have just gotten into the habit of put-down or personalized/stereotype humor. We don't need it. <BR> <BR>

Check out the threads on "I was drunk the day my mother got out of jail," and "Moments of Lunacy" for "real" humor.

As for making fun of Christians - if you all would stop acting so idiotic and hypocritical and stop thinking that your religion is the ONLY religion in the world then maybe us others would lighten up. Of course - you would have to kill Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson - they are toxic.

No, you wouldn't lighten up. Your defensiveness comes from something other than us. I'll let you figure out what that might be.