[1275] in Humor
HUMOR CLASSIC: THe Bronze Rat
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Tue Jan 23 16:47:42 1996
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 16:25:37 EST
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
The punch line changes, but the joke continues to survive... :)
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 12:50:34 -0500
From: rhopper@MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU (Rick Hopper)
Received from former colleague, Margaret Hellwarth:
*******************************
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
Republican."
