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 "

Funny Signs

Funny Signs:
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At a Budapest zoo - Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

Detour sign in Kyushi, Japan - Stop - Drive Sideways.

From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner - Cooles and Heates - If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

From the Soviet Weekly - There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

In a Bangkok dry cleaners - Drop your trousers here for best results.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby - The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office - We take your bags and send them in all directions.

In a hotel in Athens, Greece - Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 AM daily.

In a Japanese hotel room - Please to bathe inside the tub.

In a Paris hotel elevator - Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a Rhodes, Greece tailor shop - Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

In a Swiss mountain inn - Special today -- no ice cream.

In a Tokyo Hotel - Is forbitten to steal hotel towels please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read notis.

In a Tokyo shop - Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.

In an Acapulco hotel - The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist - Teeth extrcted by the latest Methodists.

In an East African newspaper - A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers.

In the window of a Swedish furrier - Fur coats made for ladies from their own skin.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant - Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop - Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

Sign from a Majorcan shop entrance - English well talking