THE TALE OF THE " BRONZE RAT

A tourist from the Midwest walked into a Chinese curio shop in San Francisco . While looking around at the exotic merchandise, he noticed a very lifelike, life-sized, bronze statue of a rat. It had no price tag, but was so incredibly striking the tourist decided he must have it. He took it to the old shop owner and asked, "How much for the bronze rat?"

"Ahhh, you have chosen wisely! It is $12 for the rat, $100 for the story," said the wise old Chinaman.

The tourist quickly pulled out twelve dollars. "I'll just take the rat, you can keep the story", he said.

As he walked down the street carrying his bronze rat, the tourist noticed that a few real rats had crawled out of the alleys and sewers and had begun following him down the street. This was a bit disconcerting so he began walking faster. A couple blocks later he looked behind him and saw to his horror the herd of rats behind him had grown to hundreds, and they began squealing.

Sweating now, the tourist began to trot toward the Bay. After a couple more blocks, he looked around only to discover that the rats now numbered in the THOUSANDS, and were squealing and coming toward him faster and faster. Terrified, he ran to the edge of the Bay and threw the bronze rat as far as he could into the Bay.

Amazingly, the thousands of rats all jumped into the Bay after the bronze rat, and were all drowned.

The man walked back to the curio shop in Chinatown .

"Ahhh," said the owner, "You have come back for story?"

"Hell no," said the man, "I came back to see if you have a bronze Democrat

The 2009 Beard and Mustache Championships are coming up soon. Here is a look at the past 2 years competition

2008 Germany

2007 World