posted on May 5, 2004 12:13:15 PM new
It's making the rounds on the Internet:
For $100.00, You Get the Story
A tourist walked into a Chinese curio shop in San Francisco. While looking around at the exotic merchandise, he noticed a very lifelike, life-sized, bronze statue of a rat. It had no price tag, but was so incredibly striking the tourist decided he must have it.
He took it to the old shop owner and asked, ''How much for the bronze rat?''
''Ahhh, you have chosen wisely! It is $12 for the rat, but for $100 you get the story,'' said the wise old China man.
The tourist quickly pulled out twelve dollars. ''I'll just take the rat. You can keep the story.''
As he walked down the street carrying his bronze rat, the tourist noticed that a few real rats had crawled out of the alleys and sewers and had begun following him down the street. This was a bit disconcerting so he began walking faster. A couple of blocks later he looked behind him and saw to his horror that the herd of rats behind him had grown to hundreds, and they began squealing. Sweating now, the tourist began to trot toward the Bay.
Again, after a couple of blocks, he looked around only to discover that the rats now numbered in the thousand, and were squealing and coming toward him faster and faster.
Terrified, he ran to the edge of the Bay and threw the bronze rat as far as he could into the Bay.
Amazingly, the thousands of rats all jumped into the Bay after the bronze rat, and were all drowned.
The man walked back to the curio shop in Chinatown.
''Ahhh,'' said the owner, ''You have come back for story?''
''No sir,'' said the man, ''I came back to see if you have a bronze Democrat.''
"The Secret Service has announced it is doubling its protection for John Kerry. You can understand why — with two positions on every issue, he has twice as many people mad at him." —Jay Leno
