[Dixielandjazz] Clarinet Player's Nirvana

[Steve barbone]

Waldo played clarinet in a Dixieland Band that got booked for a cruise in
the Pacific. He proceeds to have the time of his life -  until the boat
sank.

He found himself swept up on the shore of an island with no other people, no
supplies... Nothing. Only bananas and coconuts.

After about four months, he is lying on the beach one day when the most
gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to him. In disbelief, he asks her,
"Where did you come from?  How did you get here?"

"I rowed over from the other side of the island," she says. "I landed here
when my cruise ship sank."

"Amazing," he says. "You were lucky to have a rowboat wash up with you."

"Oh, this?" replies the woman. "I made the rowboat out of raw material found
on the island. I whittled the oars from gum tree branches; I wove the bottom
from palm branches; and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree."

"Impossible," he stutters. "You had no tools. How did you manage?"

"Oh, no problem," replies the woman. "On the South side of the island, there
is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found 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." Ed is stunned.

"Let's row over to my place," she says.

After a few minutes of rowing, she docks the boat at a small wharf. As Ed
looks onto shore, he nearly falls out of the boat. Before him is a stone
walk leading to an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white. While the
woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, he can only
stare ahead, dumbstruck.

As they walk into the house, she says casually, "It's not much, but I call
it home. Sit down, please. Would you like to have a drink?"

"No thanks," he says, still dazed. "Can't take any more coconut juice."

"No coconut juice," she replies. "I built a still. How about a Pina Colada?"

Trying to hide his continued amazement, he accepts, and they sit down on her
hand-woven couch to talk. After they have exchanged their stories, the woman
announces, "I'm going to slip into something more 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, Ed goes into the bathroom. There, in the
cabinet, is a razor made from a bone handle. Two shells honed to a
hollow-ground edge are fastened on to its end inside of a swivel mechanism.
"WOW! This woman is amazing," he muses, "what next?"

When he returns, she greets him wearing 'nothing but vines' strategically
positioned, and smelling faintly of gardenias. She beckons for him to sit
down next to her.

"Tell me," she begins suggestively, slithering closer to him, "We've been
out here for a really long time. I know 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 stares into his eyes. He can't believe what he's hearing!

"You mean ...", he swallows excitedly,

You have a clarinet that I can play?