A True Software Engineer

An ambitious software engineer finally decided to take a vacation. He
booked
himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time of his
life. At
least for a while. A hurricane came up unexpectedly. The ship went down
and
was lost instantly. The man found himself swept up on the shores of an
island with no other people, no supplies, nothing. Only bananas and
coconuts.

Used to four-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 row boat, 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, and 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," the software engineer said, "I didn't know anyone else had
survived. How many of you are there? You were really lucky to have a row
boat wash up with you."

"It's only me," she said, "and the row boat didn't wash up: nothing
did."

He was confused, "Then how did you get the row boat?"

"Oh, simple," replied the woman. "I made it out of raw material 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."

"But, but, that's impossible," stuttered the man. "You had no tools or
hardware - how did you manage?"

"Oh, that was no problem," the woman said. "On the south side of the
island,
there is a very unusual strata of exposed alluvial rock. I found that if
I
fired it to a certain temperature, it melted into forge able ductile
iron. I
used that to make tools, and used the tools to make the hardware. But
enough
of that. Where do you live?"

Sheepishly, the man 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 onto 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 row boat 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 to have a drink?"

"No, no, thank you," he said, still dazed. "I couldn't drink another
drop of
coconut juice."

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

Trying to hide his continued amazement, the software engineer 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 more comfortable.
Would you like to have a shower and a 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 to its tip, inside a swivel mechanism.

"This woman is absolutely amazing," he mused. "What next?"

When he returned, the woman greeted him. She beckoned for him to sit
down
next to her. "Tell me," she began suggestively, Slithering closer to
him,
brushing her leg against his, "We've both 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 to do for all of these
months."

She stared into his eyes.

He couldn't believe what he was hearing - this was like all of his
dreams
coming true in one day.

"You mean...," he replied, "I can check my e-mail from here?"