Ambassadors from Venus are mistaken for pesky tourists from Venice and humanity’s future is ruined.

This is the literary equivalent of the Gary Larson cartoon in which an Earthman inadvertently dooms his planet by “shaking” the leader of a race that looks for the world like arms-and-hands. Larson’s cartoon is better. This story exists basically for the pun at the end, and it isn’t much of a pun. The story isn’t actually painful to read, but it seems very much on the pointless side.

Found In

	Complete Stories, The, Vol. 1
	Earth Is Room Enough