Subject: the bronze rat

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, $100 for the
story," said the wizened old Chinaman.

The tourist quickly pulled out $12. "Forget that! I'll just take the
rat, you can keep the story."

As he walked away from the shop 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 the Bay. Again, after a
couple blocks, he looked around only to discover that therats 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.

"Ha," said the owner, "you have come back for story?"

"Nah," said the man, "I came back to see if you have a bronze
Frenchman.