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 and $100 for the story," said the wise old
Chinaman.
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 blocks
later he looked behind him and saw to his horror the herd of rats behind him had
grown to hundreds, and they began squealing.
Sweating now, the
tourist began to trot toward San Francisco Bay . Again, after a couple blocks,
he looked around only to discover that the rats now numbered in the MILLIONS,
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
millions 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 come back for story ?"
"No sir," said
the man, "I came back to see if you have a bronze Democrat."
