An ambitious yuppie finally decided to take a vacation. He booked
himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time of his
life. Until the boat sank. The man 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 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
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."

The guy 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 the man looks onto the 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, the man can 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, the man 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 bathroom cabinet."

No longer questioning anything, the man 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. "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 e-mail from here...?"

© 1998 Wurli • Revised: Juli 19, 2001