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Ed
finally decides to take a holiday. He books himself on a Caribbean
cruise and proceeds to have the time of his life, until the boat
sinks. He 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, 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 row boat wash up with you." "Oh, this?"
replies the woman. "I made the rowboat out of raw materials 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. "I 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 onto its end inside of a swivel mechanism. "Wow! This woman
is amazing," he muses. "What next?"
When
she 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 e-mail from here?"
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