Build an Ark
Build an Ark The Lord said to Noah, "In six months, I'm going to make it rain until the earth is covered with water and all the evil is destroyed. I want you to build an ark and save two of each animal species. Here are the blueprints for the ark." Six months passed. The skies began to cloud and rain began to fall. Noah sat in his front yard, weeping. "Why haven't you built the ark?" asked the Lord. "Oh, forgive me," said Noah. "I did my best, but so many things happened. "The blueprints you gave me didn't meet the city's code and I had to change them. Then the city said I was violating the zoning ordinance by building an ark in my front yard, so I had to get a varience.. "The Forest Service required tree-cutting permits, and I was sued by a state animal rights group when I tried to gather up the animals. "The EPA required an environmental impact statement concerning the flood. the Army Corps of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed flood plain. "The IRS seized all my assets, claiming I was trying to avoid paying taxes by leaving the country, and the Equal Opportunity Commission said I wasn't hiring enough Croatians. "I'm sorry, Lord, but I can't finish the ark for at least five years." Suddenly the rain stopped, the skies cleared and the sun began to shine. Noah looked up and said, "Lord, does this mean you're not going to devastate the earth?" "Right," said the Lord. "The government already has."

A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop...
A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner the price. "Twelve dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner, "and an extra thousand for the story behind it." "At that price, you can keep the story, old man," he replies, "but I'll take the bronze 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, 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... following him. 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 racing to the water's edge a trail of rats twelve blocks long is 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 as far as he can throw it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the 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 sir, you've come back for the story," says the owner. "No," says the tourist, "I was just hoping you had a bronze sculpture of a lawyer "