Net
picking
Home
alone... almost
SO there was this engineer, on a
cruise ship in the tropics for the first time. He was
being waited on hand an foot, having the time of his
life... But, it did not last. A typhoon came up suddenly.
The ship went down almost instantly.
When he came to, he
found himself 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 for signs of a ship to come to his
rescue.
One day, as he was lying
on the beech 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 seen in 4 months.
She was tall, tanned,
and her blond hair flowing in the sea breeze gave her an
almost ethereal quality. She spotted him also as 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 didnt know anyone else had survived.
How many of you are there? Where, did you get the
rowboat? You must have been really lucky to have a
rowboat wash-up with you?"
"It is only
me", she said, "and the rowboat didnt
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. I wove the bottom from palm
branches, and the sides came from a cypress tree".
"But, but, asked
the man, what about tools and hardware, how did..."
"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 iron. I used that for tools, and 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, lets row over to my place," she
said." So they both got into the rowboat and left
for her side of 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 at the end of
which there stood a lovely bungalow painted in sky blue
and white.
"Its not
much," she said, "but I call it home. Would you
like to have a drink?" "No," said the man,
"one more coconut juice and I think Ill be
sick."
"It wont be
plain coconut juice," the woman replied, "I
have a small still, how about a Pina Colada?" Trying
to hide his continued amazement, the man accepted, and
they sat down on her couch to chat.
After a while 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 is a mans razor upstairs in
the cabinet in the bathroom."
So, our enthralled
engineer, no longer questioning anything, went upstairs
to the bathroom. There in the cabinet was a razor made
from a bone handle, two shells honed to a sharp edge.
He shaved, showered and
went back down stairs.
"You look
great," said the woman, "I think Ill go
up and slip into something more comfortable." So she
did.
And, the man continued
to sip his Pina Colada. After a short time, the woman
returned wearing fig leafs strategically positioned and
smelling faintly of hibiscus and violets.
"Tell me," she
asked, "we have both been out here for a very long
time with no companionship. You know what I mean. Have
you been lonely, is there anything that you really miss?
Something that all men and women need. Something that it
would be really nice to have right now."
"Oh yes! There
is," the man replied," as he moved closer to
the woman while fixing a winsome gaze upon her,
"Tell me... Do you
happen to have an Internet connection?"
R. S.
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