Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 08:57:54 -0300 (ADT)
From: Crime Formation
Subject: BLAGUES-L: Desert Island

[ This one is quite popular, I must have received it in three similar
versions.  I wish you a very good weekend, everyone!  (/jg) ]


Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 16:20:16 +0100
From: Joshua Taub

A hurricane came unexpectedly.  The ship went down and was lost.  The man
found himself swept up on the shore of an island with no other people, no
supplies, nothing.  Only bananas and coconuts.  Used to 5-star hotels,
this guy had no idea what to do, so for the next four months he ate
bananas, drank coconut juice and 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."

"It'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 branches 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 for 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 minutes 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 coconut juice," the woman replied. "I have 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 from 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.  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?"