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 "

An old occupation
What happens when people of different occupations get old.

- Old accountants never die, they just lose their balance.

- Old actors never die, they just drop apart.

- Old archers never die, they just bow and quiver.

- Old architects never die, they just lose their structures.

- Old bankers never die, they just lose interest.

- Old basketball players never die, they just go on dribbling.

- Old beekeepers never die, they just buzz off.

- Old bookkeepers never die, they just lose their figures.

- Old bosses never die, much as you want them to.

- Old cashiers never die, they just check out.

- Old chauffeurs never die, they just lose their drive.

- Old chemists never die, they just fail to react.

- Old cleaning people never die, they just kick the bucket.

- Old cooks never die, they just get deranged.

- Old daredevils never die, they just get discouraged.

- Old deans never die, they just lose their faculties.

- Old doctors never die, they just lose their patience.

- Old electricians never die, they just lose contact.

- Old farmers never die, they just go to seed.

- Old garagemen never die, they just retire.

- Old hackers never die, they just go to bits.

- Old hardware engineers never die, they just cache in their chips.

- Old hippies never die, they just smell that way.

- Old horticulturists never die, they just go to pot.

- Old hypochondriacs never die, they just lose their grippe.

- Old investors never die, they just roll over.

- Old journalists never die, they just get de-pressed.

- Old knights in chain mail never die, they just shuffle off their metal coils.

- Old laser physicists never die, they just become incoherent.

- Old lawyers never die, they just lose their appeal.

- Old limbo dancers never die, they just go under.

- Old mathematicians never die, they just disintegrate.

- Old milkmaids never die, they just lose their whey.

- Old ministers never die, they just get put out to pastor...

- Old musicians never die, they just get played out.

- Old number theorists never die, they just get past their prime.

- Old numerical analysts never die, they just get disarrayed.

- Old owls never die, they just don't give a hoot.

- Old pacifists never die, they just go to peaces.

- Old perfessers never die, they just lose their class.

- Old photographers never die, they just stop developing.

- Old pilots never die, they just go to a higher plane.

- Old policemen never die, they just cop out.

- Old preachers never die, they just ramble on, and on, and on, and on....

- Old printers never die, they're just not the type.

- Old programmers never die, they just branch to a new address.

- Old programming wizards never die, they just recurse.

- Old quarterbacks never die, they just pass away.

- Old schools never die, they just lose their principals.

- Old sculptors never die, they just lose their marbles.

- Old seers never die, they just lose their vision.

- Old sewage workers never die, they just waste away.

- Old skateboarders never die, they just lose their bearings.

- Old sailors never die, they just get a little dingy.

- Old Soldiers never die. Young ones do.

- Old steelmakers never die, they just lose their temper.

- Old students never die, they just get degraded.

- Old tanners never die, they just go into hiding.

- Old typists never die, they just lose their justification.

- Walt Disney didn't die. He's in suspended animation.

- Old white water rafters never die, they just get disgorged.

- Old wrestlers never die, they just lose their grip.