Ed finally decides to take a vacation. He books himself on a Caribbean
cruise and proceeds to have the time of his life–until the boat sank.
He found himself swept up on the shore of an island with no other people,
no supplies…nothing…only bananas and coconuts.
After about four months, he is lying on the beach one day when the most
gorgeous woman he has 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 says. “I landed here 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 material 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 Ed. “You had no tools or hardware.
How did you manage?”
“Oh, that was no problem,” replies the woman. “On the south side of the
island, there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found
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.”
Ed is stunned. “Let’s row over to my place,” she says. After a few minutes
of rowing, she docks the boat at a small wharf. As Ed looks onto shore, he
nearly falls out of the boat. Before him is a stone walk leading to an
exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white.
While the woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, he
could only stare ahead, dumbstruck. As they walk into the house, she says
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 says, still dazed. “Can’t take any more coconut
juice.”
“It’s not coconut juice,” the woman replies. “I have a still. How about a
Pina Colada?” Trying to hide his continued amazement, he accepts, and they
sit down on her couch to talk.
After they have exchanged their stories, the woman announces, “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, Ed goes into the bathroom. There, in the
cabinet, is a razor made from a bone handle. Two shells honed to a hollow
ground edge are fastened on to its end inside of a swivel mechanism.
“Wow! This woman is amazing!” he muses, “What next?”
When he returns, 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 really 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 stares into his eyes. He can’t
believe what he’s hearing: “You mean—“, he swallows excitedly, “I can
check my email from here?!”