I don't know its origins, but a friend of a friend emailed me this little story and I thought people here might enjoy it:
A tourist walked into a Chinese curio shop on Mott Street. 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 simply had to have it.
He took it to the old shop owner and asked, "How much for the bronze
rat?" "You have chosen wisely! It is $12 for the rat, $100 for the
story," said the old shopkeeper. The tourist quickly pulled out twelve
dollars. "I'll just take the rat, you can keep the story."
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 west on Canal Street towards the Hudson River.
Again, after a couple blocks, he looked around only to discover that the
rats now numbered in the millions, and were squealing and coming toward
him faster and faster. Terrified, he ran to the edge of the Hudson and
threw the bronze rat as far as he could into the river. Amazingly, the
millions of rats all jumped into the river 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?" "No
sir," said the man, "I came back to see if you have a bronze Republican."