Busy week, is all. Tell you what, let me tell you a little story.
A guy saves up a small fortune to fulfill his girlfriend’s desire to go on a long cruise. The day before they’re supposed to set sail, she tells him that she’s been cheating on him for the last six months and it’s over between them and she’s moving out.
Well, figures the guy, the tickets are non-refundable. Even though I hate cruises, I might as well go, maybe I’ll meet someone.
About three days into the cruise, the vessel strikes a piece of giant coral which somehow knocks a hole in the hull. Everyone drowns but the guy, who manages to wash ashore on a deserted island.
Months go by. Day by day he learns more about the island: what to eat, which plants are poisonous and which plants are useful, when the best time to catch the fish is, etc. He spends his evenings on the beach watching the sunset, and if it’s an ultimately lonely life, he feels like, for the first time ever, he’s been given the opportunity for honest self-reflection, and he finds that somewhat rewarding.
One night, as he’s watching the sun set, he sees a ship in the distance. Using the tools he’s constructed while on the island, he fires off a flare. As the boat comes closer he starts to think about how much he’s changed in his time alone, and how difficult it might be to return to society. As all this goes through his head, the boat strikes the same piece of giant coral that his own boat struck so many months ago. Every passenger drowns, except one who washes ashore on the island.
Amazingly, it’s Scarlett Johannsen.
She’s beat up as hell, but the guy already knows all the healing properties of the fauna on the island. Slowly but steadily he nurses her back to health, until she’s fully recovered. As the months go by, nature takes its course, and they become intimate with each other. The first flush of new love is so strong that they often talk about how lucky they are to be all alone in this beautiful remote paradise.
One night, as they’re sitting by fire, finishing dinner, the guy looks up at Scarlett, somewhat sheepishly.
“Red,” he says, “I’m going to ask you to do something for me. It’s very important to me, but I understand if it might make you feel strange or uncomfortable and you don’t want to do it.”
“Are you kidding?” she responds. “You saved my life. Everything I’ve done since I’ve been here has been completely of my own volition. I love the life we’ve built together. There’s nothing you could ask me that I’d say no to.”
The guy pulls out a fake moustache he’s fashioned from palm fronds and the fur of one of the island’s rodents.
“Could you every now and then put this moustache on?” he asks shyly.
Scarlett’s a little apprehensive, but after everything she’s just said, she feels like she owes it to him. She takes it and sticks it on her upper lip.
“One other thing,” says the guy.
“Okay…” says Scarlett.
“Could I every now and then call you Dave?”
Now she’s starting to get a little freaked out, but it’s just the two of them on the island, and what’s she going to do? She grudgingly nods.
The guy lets out a huge sigh of satisfaction, and looks straight at her.
“Dave,” he says, “you’re not gonna believe who I’m fucking.”
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 