Yankee Pot Roast

LITERARY VUG

How to Make the Most of
This Desert Island Experience

by
Christina Delia


You don’t need a friendly volleyball to keep yourself sane. (It’s a known fact that most volleyballs are introverts, anyway.) Any practical castaway will tell you that the main regret is not loss of companionship, but loss of TiVo. How does the savvy shipwreck survivor keep himself busy in these crazy times? Now voyager, read on.

Mr. Stranded Builds His Dream House
You’ve searched the island and seen neither hide nor tail of anything breathing (human or otherwise). Now it’s time to build yourself the sort of home you’ve dreamed of having (when you were five years old). Lucky for you, palm trees are easier to uproot than your mainstream suburban elm or oak. Construct a bamboo roof, coconut crockery, and swinging vines to take you from the bathroom to the kitchen (not that there’s much of a difference between the two). Imagine if there were living creatures around to see this! You would be the envy of The Joneses (or in this case, the Swiss Family Robinson.)

Save Time in a Bottle
There’s many an eBay enthusiast who would pay good money for a bottle of desert-island sand. Quite possibly there’s a landfill in your little spot of paradise, and it’s your job to claim it. After all, time is no object. If you do find some bottles or cans, it will be in your best interest to fill ’em up with that primo desert-island dirt. Both a time waster AND a lucrative business venture.

Mime Your Way through It
Why waste time and energy talking to yourself, when you can waste even more time and energy miming every little thing you do? The same applies to every little thing you ever wanted to do, be it climb Mount Everest backwards or single-handedly operate your own fast-food franchise. The world is your oyster, which is coïncidentally one of the only foods that you could logically serve at said fast-food franchise. When you tire of oysters, you can mime yourself up a couple o’ sloppy joes… and in turn mime yourself a new career as lunch lady.

The Story of Your Life
It might seem a daunting task to write out the story of your life in sand with just a stick to guide you. Just think what Leo Tolstoy might have done had he been a castaway! Consider every square mile to be just another page, and get cracking. If the tide rolls in and muddles your masterpiece, don’t fret. After a few months of tirelessly attempting this endeavor, you will be out of your mind (or on your way there). That way, even if no one ever does rescue you, your hallucinations will provide the potential for a rich fantasy life. Supermodels and pink bunnies, here you come! Just stay away from the rabid ones… and the bunnies can be a little edgy sometimes, too.

It’s Fashion Week… for Weeks on End
Another favorite of the castaway crowd is to start your own line of women’s fashion accessories. All you need is the hair on you head and the beard on your shipwrecked chin-chin! If you’re rescued, you can sell your dazzling hair follicle creations to posh shops in New York and Los Angeles. Imagine a beautiful woman walking down an urban street, your mustache dangling deliciously close to her cleavage. She pauses to adjust your beard around her waist. Oh, marooned mastermind, what’s not to like?