Joke

Canaboid

A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique
shop in SanFrancisco's, Chinatown. Picking through the objects on
display he discovered 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 theshop 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 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, windows 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 behind him.

Making a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a lamp 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.

WHOOOSH! Pulling his legs up and clinging tothe lamp 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, "but I was wondering... do you have a
sculpture of a Man United supporter ?"