Sunday, September 22, 2002

Deserted Island?

An ambitious yuppie finally decided to take a vacation. He booked himself on a Caribbean cruise and was having the time of his life until the boat sank.

The man finds himself swept up on the shore of an island with no other people, no supplies, nothing. Only bananas and coconuts.After about four months pass, he's lying on the beach one day, when the most gorgeous woman he's ever seen rows up to him.

In disbelief, he asks her: "Where did you come from? How did you get here?"

"I rowed from the other side of the island," she replies, "I landed here several months ago when my cruise ship sank."

"Amazing," he says, "You were really lucky to have a rowboat wash up with you."

"Oh, this?" replies the woman. "I made the rowboat out of raw materials that I found on the island. The oars were whittled from Gum tree branches; I wove the bottom from Palm branches; and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree."

"But-but, that's impossible," stutters the man, "you had no tools or hardware, how did you manage?"

"Oh, that was no problem," replies the woman. "On the south side of this island there's a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. I used that to make tools, then used the tools to make the hardware."

The guy is stunned. "Let's row over to my place, " she suggests. After a few minutes of rowing, she docks the boat at a small wharf.

As the man looks toward shore, he nearly falls out of the boat in astonishment. Before him is a stone walk leading to an exquisite bungalow charmingly painted blue and white. While the woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the man can only continue to stare at the cottage, dumbstruck. As they walk into the house, she says, casually, "It's not much really, but I call it home. Sit down, please. Would you like a drink?"

"No, no thank you," he says, still dazed. "I can't take any more coconut juice."

"Oh, it's not coconut juice," the woman replies. "I have a still. How about a Pina Colada?" Trying to hide his continuing amazement, the man accepts the cocktail, and they sit down together on her couch to talk. After they've exchanged their survival stories, the woman announces, "I'm going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave? There's a razor upstairs in the cabinet in the bathroom."

No longer questioning anything, the man goes into the bathroom. There in the cabinet is a razor with a carved bone handle. Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge are fastened to its end inside of a swivel mechanism. "This woman is amazing," he muses. "What's next?"

When he returns to the living room, she greets him wearing nothing but vines - strategically positioned - and smelling faintly of gardenias. She beckons for him to sit down next to her.

"Tell me," she begins, suggestively slithering closer to him, "we've been out here for a very long time. You've no doubt been lonely. There's something I'm sure you really feel like doing right now, something you've been longing for all these months? You know..." She stares into his eyes.

He can't believe what he's hearing:

"You mean--?", he begins,



"I can check my e-mail from here?"

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