Below are some of the votes and comments submitted by readers who took last month's survey.

Keith Lynch - Little Rock, AR
Comments: Here's my list. Pick your own favorite order.

1. Praying for characters in soap opera
2. Praying for one's favorite NASCAR driver to win the race
3. Praying for mythical characters in country songs
4. Praying at the casino (really!)
5. The priest blessing my son's pet (a scorpion!)
6. Praying that someone's divorce would be ''easy''
7. Praying for a dead pet
8. Praying that people of ''all religions could just get along''
9. Praying that some notorious sinner like Saddam Hussein would ''choose Jesus''... (Ha! LOL)
10. Praying that the ''...people in hell not to have to suffer so bad...'' (!)
11. Praying for a dead friend to ''help me get fixed up with my boyfriend again'' (really!)

THO's Response: Okay, our favorite order is 10, 2, 1, 5, 3, 11, 4, 7, 9, 6, 8. No, wait! Switch 5 and 11 – your numbers 5 and 11, not the 5th and 11th number in our list. On second thought, if we could leave #9 right out that would be good... and #11. Yeah, that's better. Well, and #3 – we're not sure country songs have much mythology in them. Actually, that might make them better, or even listenable. Put #3 back in... after #9. Oh but we removed #9 and we don't like #3 after #7. So put it after #2. That's our favorite order!

BJ - Pittsburgh, PA
Comments: I once heard a woman pray for a character in her favorite soap opera. Even when I tried to explain that soap operas were complete and total fiction she responded that this woman really needed God's help.

P. Morrow - Northern Ireland
Comments: "Lord please anoint our Christmas cards." As for an explanation, I have none. I'm just repeating what I heard.

Tim - Los Angeles, CA
Comments: "Reveal the hamster" Once in a youth group meeting, my friend was worried that her pet hamster escaped, and it really worried her little brother. When I was praying for her, I prayed that God would "reveal the hamster."

Jeffrey Sykes - Overland Park, KS
Comments: "God just be Jesus to us." I am not sure of which heresy this prayer is an example; however, it certainly ranks as the most non-sensical prayer I have heard.

Jake - Englewood
Comments: In college, I had a classmate pray for the houseplants. I was hoping she was not praying for the hidden "houseplants."

Q - Memphis, TN
Comments: Well, there's an Italian UFO cult praying right now that Guy Lancaster will realize he really is the incarnation of the archangel Michael and lead them ...somewhere (they weren't really clear on that point)... in his spaceship ''velocina'' -- ''Speedy.'' I'd hafta say that's pretty odd.

Dr. Dave - San Antonio, TX
Comments: The success of a TV ministry. I mean, do we REALLY want to see divine intervention in making them successful? Maybe in sending a good plague of locusts or for a good myocardial infarction, but not success....

LSB - QLD
Comments: A friend told me of a friend of his he had taken to buy shoes.. the guy had 'laid his fleece' and was trusting God to provide a pair of shoes at the price he had requested.

Eric Knibbe - Grand Rapids, MI
Comments: A kid in my class in Grade 4, during the class prayer in the morning, would always pray that he'd get the Megazord.

Brother Mugga - Gravesend, Kent (U.K.)
Comments: I once heard someone pray for the strength to pray for the strength and faith to believe that He would give her the strength to believe that He listened to her prayers. I was still hunched over trying to work that brain-wedgie through when they started tidying up the chairs. I have a sneaking suspicion that it also caused God to take his eye off the ball, because Elton John made it to number 1 in the charts a couple of days later...

John R - Vestal, NY
Comments: One time I read this newspaper article online about how these folks at Riverview Community Church in Canton, MI starting praying for those who were about to pray on May 1st for the National Day of Prayer. It went something like this - a group of people prayed a few weeks before for those who were to pray a week before for those who were praying on the 1st of May. Now, that's either a twisted church or a twisted newspaper....

David Drake - Wyoming, MI
Comments: We had a lady in one of our home fellowship groups who would pray for ''the bowels'' each week. We were never certain whose bowels they were. Hers? A friends? We never knew. They were ''the'' bowels so maybe the answer is more comic.

Ben Walker - Cincinnati, OH
Comments: ''Humility.'' Does anyone ever really think about this before they just unthinkingly blurt it out? Granted, it's a noble attribute and even though it is sort of a popular piece of ''Christianese'' prayer filler, it strikes me as kind of a masochistic request. "Yes Lord, please waylay my pride and humiliate me... because while I recognize that I need to be humble, apparently I'm incapable of attaining it without a divinely instigated and publicly demonstrable glut of my own inadequacy. Could You, maybe make me pee my pants in front of the whole church, or perhaps I could just start uncontrollably drooling on myself whenever I try to talk. Oh gee, and could you please make it the case that everyone points and laughs."

Stacy - Silverton, OR
Comments: Before a softball game, one team member prayed, ''please let the other team win...and let us win, too.'' Both teams win? Like a tie, perhaps? Except nobody wants to tie...somebody's gotta win. It was hard to not laugh out loud when I heard this prayer.
THO's Response: Stacy, it's good that you didn't laugh out loud; you did what is right. A big part of being a Christian is knowing when to laugh and when to laugh behind someone's back. The good thing is even though the latter takes patience and willpower, those times are usually way funnier so you can have an even bigger laugh at someone else's expense—an expense that they don't even know exists. The "cost" of laughing out loud in front of them is often paid by you, and sometimes comes in the form of the pastor stopping his sermon, claiming he's doing the best he can, crying, and later kicking you off the worship band, which was made up of a bunch of no-talent clowns and had a horrible keytarist, anyway!

THO's Response #2: Also, insiders tell us this is exactly what Bud Selig, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, prayed for before the 2002 All-Star Game.

Jerry Berggren - Rowlett, TX
Comments: Health problems. Everyone knows that sin is the cause of poor health. Poor health is probably because they don't follow the Hallelujah diet to the letter.

Mike Rimmer - England
Comments: In my church here in Birmingham, England, an old guy got up and said a prayer of thanks after our Sunday morning meeting had closed to thank God that America now had a Christian president when George W was voted in. he then started to applaud the Lord. Unfortunately he remained the only one clapping as the rest of the congregation failed to be moved by his enthusiasm.

Jeremy - Newburgh, IN
Comments: One time, I heard of a Charismatic lady who prayed for an inanimate object to be healed...her car tire.

Lisa - Rochester, NY
Comments: My 6 year old son prayed this prayer. ''Dear Jesus, please help daddy to stop farting.''

J.B. Chapman - Overland Park, KS
Comments: An 80-year-old lady, whose equally old husband who just got out of the hospital, asked the preacher to pray for her because her husband was trying to kill her wanting to have sex.

Glenn Galloway - Wilmington, NC
Comments: During our prayer time, a woman stood up and asked us to remember Rocky...her rooster in prayer. Evidently, Rocky wasn't up to his old tricks and didn't even hoot as the sun rose in the morning.

Lyn Ridener - Louisville, KY
Comments: A lady requested prayer for a person who was facing serious surgery. However, the person was from a soap opera and the lady acted as if this were real life! This has been years ago, but I believe the soap opera was Days of Our Lives. She was almost in tears while asking and we were almost in tears from trying to hold back our laughs.

Josh "Tron" Adams - Princeton, IN
Comments: I heard someone pray for God to help them get past the last boss in The Legend of Zelda.
THO's Response: Tron, tell that person we highly recommend they have the last Great Fairy's gift of defensive enhancement before fighting (they can go beyond Ganon's castle and use the Golden Gauntlets from the Shadow section to pull up the huge rock past the archway. A Great Fairy is inside). Navi can help them target Ganon this time. Ganon has two huge swords and knocks their Master Sword out of their hand during the cutscene. They should use Arrows of Light in his face to stun him and their Megaton Hammer to hit his tail. They can also use Biggoron's Sword, but it for some reason doesn't seem to work as well.

Lucinda - Moundsville, WV
Comments: Gossip disguised as a pray request. Example: Mary Jean tells the women's Bible study group to pray that Jesus would convict Ruth Ann of her gossiping. Mary Jean then tells everyone how she ran into Ruth Ann at the Walmart and Ruth Ann told her that she saw Margaret May riding around town with a very attractive man, who obviously wasn't her husband and they looked pretty cozy. Ruth Ann also said that she heard Mary Francis was pregnant by some doctor from Somewheresville and his wife is such a ditz that she believes his late night pages are from actual patients and not his mistress. Meanwhile, Mary Francis husband has been serving in the military and it has been rumored that he is covorting with some hussy looking nurse.

Glenn Mowat - London, ON, Canada
Comments: I heard someone pray, while playing, stick, please god, do not let me drop the stick...

Gauldino - Dallas, TX
Comments: A person I knew wanted to pray over their CD player after I used it to play Soundgarden's A-Sides. Okay, so it did not have Mind Riot on there, but it claimed to not be an extensive best of on the inside cover.

Harold "The Gopher BOY" Rosas - Union City, CA
Comments: Well I got two: Revival meetinf where super-duper apostle of faith guy was casting the demons out the Christians willing to stay for the show and be a victim of his ministry. He prayed for a very large lady and cast out the demon of fat, gluttony, and calories!She never came back but scripture had the right remody if such demons do exist ''this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting'' I would be able to tell you where the verse is but I had the spirit of intelectualizm cast out of me that same night and several times afterward.Sorry Jesus I guess i believe that book more than the preacher/ bumpersticker hidden manna knowledge. 2) At A/g church in Santa Cruz my friend went up to the new yoputh pastor for prayer for lust. i all ready new this was going to be goodd since this guy beleived that the sin fo fornication was committed by listening to Rock music and the Devil was fornicating the flock with Chrstian rock like STRYPER and AMY GRANT, anyway I can not here what my friend whispered in his ear for prayer but we sgure new what he got prayed for when the youth pastor grappled his head like a basketball in a drive or shot choice in the game. Yelling (praying) spirit of masturbation come out of Him!!!! over and over again and over with very few variations except with grunts and the word NOW!! andlet go!! Shaking that boy silly and finally the Spirit took over and cast him to the ground. My friend said he really wanted to die would have been better but faking slain in the spirit was all he could do at the moment. My friend not to long later becamr Catholic I was happy for him! Do I win a prize? XXL T0shirt would be nice in black
THO's Response: Your prize is that we didn't correct any of your typos or misspellings.

Kevin D. - Cortland, NY
Comments: I caught my little friend Jasper (turning 5 soon) praying desperately one afternoon in some random driveway in Illinois. His pleas were steadfast and his faith sure that God could never hold back when somebody wanted something so desperately. ''Please, Lord,'' he implored, full of passion and zeal beyond his tender years. ''Please, please, would you someday... make me Spiderman?'' So it's not divine power, but at least it is superhuman power. Spidey power. May God hear the prayers of His children. Amen.

John Katenheimer - BC
Comments: In the Sunday morning service, a father came to the podium and hands were laid upon him for a reconnectomy - that is a reversal of his vasectomy! While we prayed with every head bowed and every eye closed I'm sure some of the eyes were rolling behind the eyelids!

Craig Lovely - Bronson, FL
Comments: We were closing RA's with a prayer and one of the kids prayed for the Power Rangers. He prayed especially asked God to protect the red ranger while he fights the evil Lord Zed.

Nik - San Antonio, TX
Comments: Visiting a small group for the first time, during rotational prayer (cuz everyone has something they can pray for, right?) the lady next to me tearfully pleads: ''Lord, I need clarity. If I am supposed to remain a member of ABCC, then I need them to remember that I ordered my ''Faith is caught, not taught'' bumper sticker. If I have lost my faith in my church, how can I share with them my faith in You.'' While I am slack-jawed and wondering (''A bumper sticker!?'') , everyone around me gets up and starts laying-on hands. I did not stick around for dessert. I bet they had Kool Aid too.