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A tourist browsing a curio shop in New York noticed a very lifelike, bronze statue of a rat. It didn’t have a price tag, but the man was intrigued enough that he decided to buy it. “How much for the bronze rat?” he asked the shop owner.
“Fifty bucks for the rat. Two hundred bucks for the story,” came the reply.
The tourist gave the man a fifty and said, “You can keep the story.”
As the tourist walked down the sidewalk carrying his bronze rat, he noticed that a few real rats had crawled out of the alleys and sewers and were following him down the street. Slightly alarmed, the tourist stepped up his pace a bit. However, within a matter of minutes, the herd of rats behind him had grown to several hundred, and the squealing sounds they made were frightening.
The tourist broke out into a full run and headed for the Hudson River. Looking over his shoulder, he noticed that the rats now numbered in the thousands and were chasing after him with great fervor, snarling and hissing as they charged him down.
Absolutely terrified, the man bolted to the edge of the river and threw the bronze rat as far out into the water as he could. Amazingly, the throng of rats rushed right past him and hurled themselves into the Hudson behind the bronze statue, inadvertently drowning themselves in the process!
After the shock wore off, the tourist ran back to the shop owner. “I see you’ve come back for the story!” he said with a wry smile.
“No,” said the tourist. “I came back to see if you have a bronze politician for sale.”
Topics Illustrated Include:
Danger
Democracy
Government
Politicians
Politics
Salesman
Surprise
(Resource cataloged by David R Smith)
