Marooned

vacation. He booked himself on a Caribbean cruise and

proceeded to have the time of his life. ...at least for

awhile. A hurricane came unexpectedly. The ship went down

and was lost instantly. The man found himself swept up on the

shore of an island with no other people, no supplies,

nothing. Only bananas and coconuts. Used to 4-star hotels,

this guy had no idea what to do. So for the next four months

he ate bananas, drank coconut juice, longed for his old life,

and fixed his gaze on the sea, hoping to spot a rescue ship.

One day, as he was lying on the beach, he spotted movement

out of the corner of his eye. It was a rowboat, and in it was

the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. She rowed up to

him.

In disbelief, he asked her: "Where did you come from? How

did you get here?"

"I rowed from the other side of the island," she said, "I

landed here when my cruise ship sank."

"Amazing," he said, "I didn't know anyone else had survived.

How many of you are there? You were really lucky to have a

rowboat wash up with you."

"It's only me," she said, "and the rowboat didn't wash up,

nothing did."

He was confused, "Then how did you get the rowboat?"

"Oh, simple." replied the woman "I made the rowboat out of

raw material 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," stuttered the man, "you had

no tools or hardware, how did you manage?"

"Oh, that was no problem," replied the woman, "on the south

side of the island there is 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 for tools, and used the tools to make the

hardware. But, enough of that," she said. "Where do you

live?"

Sheepishly he confessed that he had been sleeping on the

beach the whole time.

"Well, let's row over to my place, then," she said.

After a few minutes of rowing, she docked the boat at a

small wharf. As the man looked onto shore he nearly fell out

of the boat. Before him was a stone walk leading to an

exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white. While the woman

tied up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the man

could only stare ahead, dumbstruck. As they walked into the

house, she said casually "It's not much, but I call it home.

Sit down please; would you like to have a drink?"

"No, no thank you" he said, still dazed, "can't take any

more coconut juice."

"It's not coconut juice," the woman replied. "I have a

still. How about a Pina Colada?"

Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepted,

and they sat down on her couch to talk. After they had

exchanged their stories, the woman announced, "I'm going to

slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take

a shower and shave, there is a razor upstairs in the cabinet

in the bathroom."

No longer questioning anything, the man went into the

bathroom.

There in the cabinet was a razor made from a bone handle.

Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge were fastened on to

its end inside of a swivel mechanism. "This woman is

amazing," he mused, "what next?"

When he returned, she greeted him wearing nothing but vines

(strategically positioned) and smelling faintly of gardenias.

She beckoned for him to sit down next to her. "Tell me," she

began, suggestively, slithering closer to him, "we've been

out here for a very long time. You've 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 stared into his eyes. He couldn't believe what he was

hearing: "You mean-- ?", he replied, "--I can check my voice

mail from here?"