A man died and was taken to his place of eternal torment by the devil. As he passed
sulfurous pits and shrieking sinners, he saw a man he recognized as a lawyer snuggling up
to a beautiful woman.
"That's unfair!" he cried. "I have to roast for all eternity, and that
lawyer gets to spend it with a beautiful woman."
"Shut up," barked the devil, jabbing him with his pitchfork. "Who are
you to question that woman's punishment?"
A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. Picking
through the objects on display he discovers 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 the shop 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 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. 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 is behind him. Making a mighty leap, he jumps up
onto a light 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. Pulling his legs up and clinging
to the light 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, "I was wondering if you have a bronze
lawyer."
A defending attorney was cross examining a coroner.
The attorney asked, "Before you signed the death certificate had you taken the
man's pulse?"
The coroner said, "No."
The attorney then asked, "Did you listen for a heart beat?"
"No."
"Did you check for breathing?"
"No."
"So when you signed the death certificate you had not taken any steps to make sure
the man was dead, had you?"
The coroner, now tired of the brow beating said, "Well, let me put it this way.
The man's brain was sitting in a jar on my desk, but for all I know he could be out there
practicing law somewhere."
A: A Doberman pinscher.
A:You cry when you cut up an onion.
Q: What do you have if three lawyers are buried up to their necks in
cement?
A: Not enough cement.
