An ambitious young businessman finally decided to take a vacation. He booked
himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time of his
life...at least or for awhile.  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 ame 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 its 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?"