Prompt: You are being sent to a deserted island and are allowed to take only five things: what do you take? After six months on the island, which ones were poor choices and which ones have been helpful?
I’d only had two days to make my choices: what five things would I take with me to a deserted island? I was going, and I had no say in it. What immediately came to mind were, of course, items I couldn’t live without on a daily basis. First and foremost would be my iPhone. With that I could keep in touch with home, and not be lonely or totally out of touch when I finally made it back to civilization. A hairbrush, toothbrush and paste, Scope, lipstick and compact, tissues, nail clippers, nail polish, and remover. But, when I counted everything up, I was way over my five-item limit, like twice over. Back to the drawing board.
Warming up the PC, I put on my thinking cap. I figured I should check out what there is to do on a deserted island, and then I would know what to take. Thinking of baked Alaska, chocolate raspberry demitasse, and crème brulée, imagine my shock when I read on Wikipedia.com that a deserted island has nothing to do with dessert, but is “an uninhabited island that has yet to be (or is not currently) populated by humans.” What–no people? Who wants to even go there, then? Well, I guessed I’d scrap the makeup and the nail stuff. Probably the brush and tooth products, too, because there’d be no one to care if my hair were a rat’s nest or that I had a permanent case of halitosis.
I asked my teen-aged daughter what she thought I should take. Island equals beaches, she said, so take plenty of sunscreen and a pair of Oakleys. She also suggested taking War and Peace. If I couldn’t fall asleep at night, trying to read that would do the trick. I could also use the book as a workout weight to keep my muscles toned while I’m away from the gym. As a last resort, she supposed, I could always read it.
Asking the same question of her older brother, who, as we all know, knows everything, he told me to take magazines. After I’d read them, I could always use the pages for toilet paper. Oh, and take a Swiss army knife, he said, it has a lot of cool stuff on it. I checked it out. Do you know the Swiss Army Climber has teeny, tiny scissors, tweezers and even a toothpick? But, unless someone stranded on the island before me had left a nice bottle of White Zinfandel, I wouldn’t get to try out the cute little corkscrew-thingy.
Although it hurt to do so, I sat down and thought wisely of the most important things to take in order to survive. I figured if life were about simply existing, then woman’s greatest needs were food, shelter, clothing, heat—and chocolate, which doesn’t count as a food.
In order to meet my housing needs, I’d take an LL Bean tent with extra rooms in it. I looked forward to decorating it with driftwood, shells and plants from the forest.
As far as clothes went, since no one would be there to admire my coordinated Nordstrom outfits and Kenneth Cole shoes, I chose a full-length black Jessica London raincoat with detachable hood—my one “little black thing.” It would take care of me in the rain and double as a blanket in the tent. When the clothes I wore to the island were just bare shreds, I could wear that.
Heat was a tough one to figure out. Assuming there was no electricity on the island, my DuraFlame Power Heat Infrared quartz heater wouldn’t work. I could haul the cast iron hibachi, but it’s pretty bulky. I don’t really want to cart that thing around. Charcoal makes such a mess, and I’d made no provision for soap. I’d wondered if I would have to count each piece of coal as one item. Definitely not going to work. The Brainy Son said I could take a flint lighter and get my own blaze going. That sounded cozy. I’d take that.
Food was going to be a big issue. What could I take that would last me potentially months and months? I ended up settling for a 20-pound tub of non-microwaveable popcorn, lamenting the inability to take butter for it and the shaker of rosemary with lemon zest. If I didn’t eat all of a batch I made, I could stuff the hood of my little black raincoat and make myself a pillow. Yeah, that works.
Pacing back and forth in my leopard print plushy bathrobe across the newly laid bamboo sunroom floor, I stretched my brain to its limits as to how I was going to get choco-late to the island. Having a momentary flash of brilliance a la Martha Stewart, I dumped out the twenty pounds of popcorn, and poured ten pounds of melted chocolate in the bottom, turning the tub to evenly coat the bottom and sides of the tub. I emptied the fridge, and cooled the tub until the chocolate hardened. Then I poured the popcorn back into the new chocolate container. Last, I scooped the leftover popcorn that wouldn’t fit back into container into the tent bag.
On the appointed day, I stuffed the Swiss Army knife, the little black raincoat and the flint lighter into the tent bag, and set the chocolate-and-popcorn tub next to it. My husband tried to talk to me all morning, but with so much on my mind, I’d had to shush him several times.
We walked together to the dock. I had the enormous tent bag slung across my body, supported by my left hand, and I carried the popcorn tub in my right hand. It was, admittedly, a most awkward trudge with the bag knocking against my knees.
The boat was already at the dock, waiting for me. I hefted the bag over my head and dropped it at the captain’s feet. He sorted through it, counting items. While he did that, I speed-dialed my best friend to let her know I was about to head out to sea and to tape every episode of Jersey Shore for me, but the captain spied the phone, and seized it out of my hand before Yvonne even had a chance to answer. I grabbed for it, arguing that my phone shouldn’t be counted as an item, as it was more than just a basic necessity, it’s life itself. But he informed me that if that were the case, I needed to pick out something less life-necessary from my bag to leave behind. Of course, I couldn’t do that. Frustrated, I told the captain where he could put the phone, but he handed it to my husband to take home with him.
The captain signaled it was time to leave, so I gave my husband a quick kiss goodbye, just before the captain grasped my arm to escort me on board. He revved up the motor and drew away from the dock. My husband cupped his hands and shouted something at me, but the sound of the motor pretty much drowned out his voice. All I could catch was, “You should have taken—.” Oh sure, now he tries to tell me.
Hours and hours later I’m sure, the captain cut the motor and drifted on the choppy water onto a sandy beach at the edge of an isolated island. He extended his hand and helped me over the edge of the boat. He threw my tent bag on the shore and handed me the tub. It sloshed. Then he put the motor in drive and off he went, cutting across the top of the foamy sea.
This island is not an island at all. It’s a dot on the sea of life. It’s only about three subdivision lots wide and about five lots long. I can see the ocean everywhere I stand, though for color and variety, there is a small stand of short scraggly trees along part of one edge of the island.
Now six months later, I sleep on the floor of the tent with its roof on my face. I never could figure out which aluminum tubing went where to get this thing to stand up. I’m also still brushing out popcorn kernels from the floor before I settle down to sleep.
As for the chocolate, it melted into the popcorn in the tub and the heat and humidity have kept it constantly liquid. I basically have crunchy chocolate-popcorn soup. I broke a molar on it last week.
My first night out here, I tried to use the flint lighter to burn some small branches, but instead it caught the belt of my little black raincoat on fire, which caused the whole coat to go up in flames. Fortunately, I was able to shrug it off just in time. It rains every day and my clothes have become shreds, but now I have no raincoat to back me up.
I have resorted to using the one-half inch blade in the Swiss Army knife to carve messages in driftwood to the boat captain, my gym club coach, my fourth-grade teacher, and the pimply boy in my freshman year that tried to kiss me behind the football bleachers. Oh yes. I’ve had fun with that. I throw the wood in the waves and they return to the beach the next day. Sort of wish I had packed War and Peace after all.
All these months I have wracked my brain to see if I could come up with what it was that my husband shouted to me as the boat was leaving. Yesterday, it came to me:
“You should have taken a motorboat, extra gas cans and a map!”
