Joke: What would you do with a statue of a rat?

[Eric Thelin <eric@generation-i.com>]

A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San  Francisco's
Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed,
life-sized bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and
unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner  what it costs.

"Twelve dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner, "and a thousand
dollars more for the story behind it."

"You can keep the story, old man," he replies, "but I'll take  the rat."

The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat
under his arm.  As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live
rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him.

Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every
time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and  follow him. By
the time he's walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels,
and people begin to point and shout.  He walks even  faster, and soon breaks
into a trot as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots,
and abandoned cars.  Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees
the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run full
tilt.

No matter how fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously, now not
just thousands but millions, so that by the time he comes rushing up to the
water's edge a trail of rats twelve city blocks long is behind him.

Making a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a light post, grasping it with one
arm while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay with the other, as
far as he can heave it.

Pulling his legs up and clinging to the light post, he watches in amazement
as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater into the sea, where
they drown.

Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop.

"Ah, so you've come back for the rest of the story," says the owner.

"No," says the tourist, "I was wondering if you have a bronze lawyer."