Gilligan with at Twist

Afternoon, I

My favorite: black cherry margaritas. Thirty students in a cramped high school auditorium, and not a single one of them had voted me their favorite teacher. I’ll show em. How about this, then - a cruise to Mexico, the last of my vacation days receding into the middle distance like the queen’s wave after a long day of engagements.

There’s one woman in particular - oom. Shirley. Enough gust to put wind in these old sails. Haven’t spoken a word to her but have written in loose cursive the many things I’ll do to her. She sulks on the upper deck with a cellular device in her hand, as if that will save us in the middle of the ocean with no connection to mankind except - the anchor! Isn’t there a shtick somewhere about how that’s all it takes to strand a ship?

Morning, II

Well, darn it. Before I opened my eyes I could already feel my dehydration and pouding temples, the black cherry margaritas a thing of 2AM. Now, at 7AM, Shirley is pounding on my door - hold on - Shirley is pounding what? Sure enough, we’ve been shipwrecked! Appartently in my drunken, anti-technological fervor, I severed the rope between the ship and the anchor! Shirley is shouting - something about my saying that iPhones and anchors are both tying us to the dark underside? Me? Oh no, Shirley-not!

The Next Afternoon, III

The island is - wait, pardon my hungover delirium - we landed on an island. An island! This is no Mexico, either. It looks deserted, although for some reason, there does appear to be some debris on the beach, seemingly belonging to others... I’m trying to stick with Shirley for now. She says she saw movement in the bushes, said something about a camera following us? Now I know for certain she is obsessed with technology. Probably just mourning her lost iPhone that fell overboard during the wreck. Or so she says.

So It Goes, IV

Shirley and I discovered - I’m not even hungover anymore, mercy to god - a person! Remember the debris on the beach? It turns out when you steal something that’s not yours, and do it sloppily - Shirley, here’s looking at you - the person it belongs to gets mad! What a thing, to find a TV remote on the beach. Of course Shirely says something about this being odd, technology on a deserted island and all, but of course it’s Shirely, so I assumed she made this up to make me laugh - the she-devil.

But out of nowhere - again, seemingly, this not-Mexico wilderness is enormous - comes this woman. And how shall I say, quite well put together woman. She is wearing yoga pants! And shoes, mine of which fell off. How can this be so? She comes up to us slowly and quietly, and equally slowly, but not equally quietly, she says: GO AWAY.

A Twilight Episode, V

Shirley is just fit to be tied. Probably because we’re tied up. The TV remote? It turns out this well-put together women was filming a private yoga retreat video. Her whole shtick was to be alone on a deserted island while doing yoga for a year. A YEAR. Doing yoga! How can anything be so boring, and yet so beautifully proportioned, with a perfect backsi-I mean, movement of the glutes?

The Shtick, VI

There are - I kid you not - six camera men here. SIX. They are all here to film - her name is Melody, appartently - her yoga. Her alone yoga. A group of seven castaways who both promote harmony with nature while leaving technology scattered on the beach, to be found by sea turtles and the innocent, all to gain potentail YouTube viewers, in the vein of having some self-awareness and integrity. The irony! Tied up and I can’t even move my glutes. Or my will to leave - Melody is giving me the high eyebrows, which I take to mean I’m attractive, although she also seems scared of my stench. She is clearly in love - and lo! So am I.

The Murder, VII

One of the camera men is named Billy. He engineered, apparently, leaving the TV remote on the beach! He knew we were on the island and wanted to trap us. Ha! If only I hadn’t fallen for dim-witted, hapless Shirley, who unforunately is the one who is NOT being chosen to fight tonight. Fight? Yes, I have been chosen to fight to the death over some kind of pride - some kind of balance in Melody’s chakra has been thrown off upon our arrival to the island, and one of us must be sacrificed to the yoga gods that be, of course. It wouldn’t be a yoga retreat without some cleansing, I suppose.

Billy is also, apparently, spiritually in line with Melody’s chakra, and must fight me to the death for expressing interest in her. So it goes.

Billy, VIII

Our epic battle turns out to be a yoga war, so we must do ten yoga poses correctly to “win” Melody’s favor and stay on the island. This is all being filmed, by the way. Billy throws down his best child’s pose while I struggle to remain stoic for the cameras, bending in all the wrong directions, but not bending my will to win!

Shirley, IX

Shirley, apparently, knew everything from the beginning, and led me to the island and to Melody. Something about a potential promotion if Shirley could convince me, har har, jokes on the loser who can’t do downward facing dog! She said she wanted to be tied up for the fun of it - oh, women these days!

Rising Signs and Tides, X

But I wouldn’t go down without a fight, of course. The tenth, and my winning, pose, was Warrior I, in which I became the first warrior to ever win Melody’s favor and stay on the island! Alive! Ha! Billy, unfortunately, had to be cast away to sea, because Melody’s rising sign, apparently, no longer meshed with Billy’s zodiac something or something.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is the end of that. Shirley, after all that, also had to be cast away to sea - her rising sign was the rising tides. Alas, we don’t have to end on that note! I found that my chakras are now aligned, thanks to Melody, my adoring TV audience, and the occassional - somehow finding their way to a deserted island - black cherry margarita. Technology is funny that way.