joke

[Jon Page]

At 11:45 AM 8/31/98 -0500, you wrote:
>witness a definite long term effect from the procedure? The only people who
>can habitually go through the motions and get paid without having to
>demonstrate positive results are doctors, lawyers, and politicians.  
>
> Ron 
>
>
>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."