Shipwrecks of the 90's
Once upon a time, a male engineer decided to vacation on a cruise
ship in the Caribbean. It was wonderful...the experience of his life! He was waited
upon hand and foot.. But, alas, it did not last. A Hurricane came up suddenly...and
the ship went down.
The man found himself, he knew not where, swept up on the shore of
an island. There was nothing else anywhere to be seen. No person, no supplies, nothing.
The man looked around. There were some bananas and coconuts, but that was it. He
was desperate, and forlorn, but decided to make the best of it. So for the next four
months he ate bananas, drank coconut juice and mostly looked to the sea mightily
for a ship to come to his rescue.
One day, as he was lying on the beach stroking his beard and looking
for a ship, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Could it be true, was
it a ship? No, from around the corner of the island came this rowboat. In it was
the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen...or at least within the past four months.
She was tall and tanned, and her blond hair flowed in the sea breeze, giving her
an almost ethereal quality. She spotted him at once (since he was waving and yelling
and screaming to get her attention). She rowed her boat towards him.
In disbelief, he asked, "Where did you come from? How did you
get here"?
She said, "I rowed from the other side of the island. I landed
on this island when my cruise ship sank".
"Amazing", he said, "I didn't know anyone else had
survived. How many of you are there? Where did you get that rowboat? You must have
been really luck to have a rowboat wash-up with you?"
"It is only me", she said, "and the rowboat didn't
wash up, nothing else did."
"Well then", said the man, "how did you get the rowboat?"
"I made the rowboat out of raw material that I found on the island,"
replied the woman. "The oars were whittled from Gum tree branches, I wove the
bottom from Palm branches, and the sides came from a Eucalyptus tree".
"But, but...", stuttered the man, "what about tools
and hardware, how did you do that?"
"Oh, 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, then used the tools to make the hardware. But,
enough of that," she said, "where do you live?"
At last the man was forced to confess that he had been sleeping on
the beach. "Well, let's row over to my place", she said. So they got into
the rowboat and left for her side of the island.
The woman easily rowed them around to a wharf that led to the approach
to her place. She tied up the rowboat with a beautifully woven hemp rope. They walked
up a stone walk and around a Palm tree, and there stood and exquisite bungalow painted
in blue and white.
"It's not much," she said, "but I call it home. Sit
down please. Would you like a drink?"
"No thanks," said the man, "one more coconut juice
and I will puke."
"It won't be 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 a while, and they had exchanged their stories, the woman asked,
"Tell me, have you always had a beard?"
"No", the man replied, "I was clean shaven all of my
life, and even on the cruise ship".
"Well if you would like to shave, there's a man's razor upstairs
in the cabinet in the bathroom." The man, no longer questioning anything, went
upstairs to the bathroom. In the cabinet was a razor made from a bone handle, two
shells honed to a hollow-ground edge fastened to its end inside a swivel mechanism.
The man shaved, showered and went back downstairs...
"You look great," said the woman, "I think I'll go
up and slip into something more comfortable."
The man settled in to wait, continuing to sip his Pina Colada. After
a short time, the woman returned wearing strategically positioned fig leaves and
smelling faintly of gardenia.
"Tell me something," she said, "We have both been out
here for a very long time. Have you, at times, become lonely? Is there anything that
you really miss? Something that all men and women need? Something that would be really
nice to have right now?"
"Yes there is," the man replied, moving closer to the woman
while fixing her with a long intense gaze. "Tell me ... Do you happen to have
an Internet connection, too?"