Challenge: What I'd Want On A Desert Island

Right, so, the usual bit of context: Weekly Blogging Challenge over at Long and Short Reviews. Hit their homepage to see the current week's responses, and add a link to your own if you're so inclined.

This week's challenge is What I'd Want On A Desert Island.

So, I mean, let's start with the basics: a ready supply of fresh water, enough food sources to provide a varied diet, and some way to find or make a shelter. (I'm good with caves, or with enough resources I could probably rough out a lean-to or maybe even a tent. Caves, by the way, don't tend to be terribly good shelter; either they're cracks in the rock, in which case they usually don't keep the elements out, or they're water-carved, in which case they tend at least to get damp and very probably to flood in the weather when you most need to be in your shelter. There are exceptions, of course.)

After that? Well, I mean obviously, an Internet connection and something access it with. That way I can call for help. I don't get that? Really? No cell tower on this deserted island? Well... drat.

Next up: a knife and some way to make fire. If I was stranded as the result of, say, a plane crash, then I don't have a knife on me because the TSA is a pack of idiots engaged largely in a theatrical approach to security. But I do carry a lighter, even though I don't (can't, really) smoke myself. It's a throwback to my misspent youth, when I hung out with a number of smokers and none of them could ever keep up with their own lighters. The number of cigarettes I lit for people whom I then had to move away from because they were, well, smoking... but I digress.

So fire is probably covered. Honestly, even without the lighter I might be okay; I know how to start a fire with nothing more than some dry branches... in theory. I'd hate to have to do it that way in practice. And then if I did, I'd have to make sure I always kept enough live coals to wake the fire again when I needed it. It could be done, but it would be a constant concern and a lot of work.

Some kind of knife or axe, though... I'm either using keys, or I'm hoping to find a usable rock. Or I'm basically banging rocks against other rocks in an attempt to chip them or smooth them into usable shapes. That's a hell of a thing to be doing when you need to be out looking for food or figuring some way to build a shelter. I do normally have my key-ring with me, so the keys might help if used creatively. (The pens, pencils, and thumb drives that also travel with me probably wouldn't be much help.)

I realize that I really haven't listed anything about what I'd want to have available in order to pass the time until I got (hopefully) rescued. That's because honestly, unless the island already had a bunch of resources in place (e.g. I've somehow landed on some millionaire's private island, and it's got a very nice house with some sort of working power sources and plenty of food and supplies, it's just currently deserted) then honestly I probably don't have time to read or listen to the battery-powered radio that miraculously washed ashore with me. At best, I'm telling myself stories while I do all the other necessary things; at worst, I'm panicking and cursing. (Or, y'know, being mauled by a Komodo dragon or something.)

...Which brings me to the main thing that I'd want on a desert island: I'd want to be &^%#ing rescued.