Fw: Roughing It (fwd)

[John Hemmer]

 The hurricane came unexpectedly; the ship went down and was lost.  A man
 found himself swept up on the shore of an island with no other people, no
 supplies, nothing ... only bananas and coconuts.  Accustomed to 5-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
 are there?  You were lucky to have a rowboat wash up with you.""There'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 materials
 that I found on the island.  The oars were whittled from Gum tree
 branches.  I wove the bottom from palm fronds and the sides and stern
 came from a Eucalyptus tree."

 "B-B-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 other side of
 the island there is a very unusual stratum 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 to make 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 hours of rowing, she docked the boat at a small wharf.
 As the man looked to the 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 a drink?"

 "No, no thank you," he said, still dazed. "I can't take any more
 coconut juice."

 "It's not just coconut juice," the woman replied.  "I built a still.
 How about a Pina Colada?"

 Trying to hide his 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 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 with a bone handle.  Two shells honed
 to a hollow ground edge were fastened onto it's end inside 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 and I'm certain 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 e-mail from here!?"