Credit: Kschlich@aol.com

A magician is the entertainment every week on a cruise ship and the crowd is
different every night.  His job becomes pretty routine and he is not
challenged because he can do the same tricks over every night because the
crowd is different.  There is only one problem, the Captain has a parrot that
can talk and the parrot watches his show every night.  Eventually the parrot
learns the secrets to all his tricks and starts blurting them out during his
show, thus ruining his magic show.  Things like "it's in his other hand, the
flowers are under the table, it's a different hat, etc."  He grows to hate
the parrot but can do nothing about it.  After all, it is the Captain's
parrot.  

One night the ship sinks and the next morning the magician finds himself
adrift on a piece of wood with nothing on it but himself and the so hated
parrot.  They say absolutely nothing to one another.  They just look at each
other with disgust and hatred for about three days.  On the forth day the
parrot breaks the silence and squawks, "Okay, I give up.  What did you do
with the fucking ship?"

===

 Sender: jwiggin@newpisgah.keene.edu
 Date: Tue, 06 May 1997 12:37:58 -0400
 Subject:  THE CASTAWAY ENGINEER

 A rather inhibited engineer finally splurged on a luxury cruise to the 
Caribbean. It was the craziest thing he had ever done in his life. Just 
as he was beginning to enjoy himself, a hurricane roared upon the 
huge ship, capsizing it like a child's toy. Somehow the engineer, 
desperately hanging on to a life preserver, managed to wash ashore 
on a secluded island.

 Outside of beautiful scenery, a spring-fed pool, bananas and 
coconuts, there was little else. He lost all hope and for hours on end, 
sat under same palm tree. One day, after several months had passed, 
a gorgeous woman in a small rowboat appeared.

 "I'm from the other side of the island," she said. "Were you on the 
cruise ship, too?"

 "Yes, I was," he answered. "But where did you get that rowboat?"

 "Well, I whittled the oars from gum tree branches, wove the reinforced 
gunnel from palm branches, and made the keel and stern from a 
Eucalyptus tree."

 "But, what did you use for tools?" asked the man.

 "There was a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed on the south 
side of the island. I discovered that if I fired it to a certain temperature in 
my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. Anyhow, that's how I got the 
tools. But, enough of that," she said. "Where have you been living all this 
time? I don't see any shelter."

 "To be honest, I've just been sleeping on the beach," he said.

 "Would you like to come to my place?" the woman asked. The engineer
nodded dumbly.

 She expertly rowed them around to her side of the island, and tied up 
the boat with a handsome strand of hand-woven hemp topped with a 
neat back splice. They walked up a winding stone walk she had laid 
and around a Palm tree. There stood an exquisite bungalow painted 
in blue and white.

 "It's not much, but I call it home." Inside, she said, "Sit down please; 
would you like to have a drink?"

 "No, thanks," said the man. "One more coconut juice and I'll throw up!"

 "It won't be coconut juice," the woman replied. "I have a crude still 
out back, so we can have authentic Pina Coladas."

 Trying to hide his amazement, the man accepted the drink, and they 
sat down on her couch to talk. After they had exchanged stories, the 
woman asked, "Tell me, have you always had a beard?"

 "No," the man replied, "I was clean shaven all of my life until I ended 
up on this island."

 "Well if you'd like to shave, there's a razor upstairs in the bathroom cabinet."

 The man, no longer questioning anything, went upstairs to the bathroom 
and shaved with an intricate bone-and-shell device honed razor sharp. 
Next he showered-not even attempting to fathom a guess as to how she 
managed to get warm water into the bathroom-and went back downstairs. 
He couldn't help but admire the masterfully carved banister as he walked.

 "You look great," said the woman. "I think I'll go up and slip into something 
more comfortable."

 As she did, the man continued to sip his Pina Colada. After a short time, 
the woman, smelling faintly of gardenias, returned wearing a revealing 
gown fashioned out of pounded palm fronds.

 "Tell me," she asked, "we've 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, really miss? Something 
that all men and woman need? Something that would be really nice 
to have right now!"

 "Yes there is!" the man replied, shucking off his shyness. "There is 
something I've wanted to do for so long. But on this island all alone, 
it was just . . . well, it was impossible."

 "Well, it's not impossible, any more," the woman said.

 The man, practically panting in excitement, said breathlessly: 
"You mean you actually figured out some way we can check our e-mail?"