I was let go from a job I loved two days before my vacation to Kauai
"Can we talk tomorrow?" Read my boss's text.
She texted me late at night and asked for a very early meeting.
I was fearing the worst.
I was going to get fired.
But why would I get fired?
All my reviews were good. I am also unbelievably handsome, fun-loving, and funny — not to mention the very real fact that I'm very brown.
This was before Trump announced the end of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion era. So at that time, it meant something.
I logged in to the call and noticed the screen split into three panes: my boss, my beautiful brown face, and the HR rep.
Shit.
I am getting fired.
But how can that be? I am unbelievably handsome, fun-loving, and funny, and remember, seriously brown.
The language of the call was clinical, and people who once said they were my family used corporate lingo like "RIF," "downsizing," and "It's not you, it's me."
Okay, they didn't say the last part, but it sounded a lot like it.
Of course, it is not me, it's them.
I am unbelievably handsome, fun-loving, and funny, and I'm always ready to go to the beach or the pool because I am diversely brown.
I was fired two days before I was scheduled to take my approved vacation to Kauai.
With nothing better to do, especially now that I was unemployed, I saw no other option but to go to Kauai for two weeks.
It felt nice to make it to Hawaii right after being fired and let the tropical breeze finger my soul.
When people found out I was let go, they would ask me, "How ARE you?" The voice they used is probably reserved for when you lose your mom, or an arm, or your phone. You know? Real tragedy.
In the United States, there are unemployment services and severance packages. Colombia, where I grew up, doesn't have any of that. If you ask, I'm sure someone would be willing to kick you in the ass out the door.
So, being unemployed in the United States feels comparatively very cozy-comfy.
I was cool as frozen blueberry pancakes.
Nothing could disturb my peace.
Then one morning, my daughters and I were walking back to our condo when my oldest saw coconuts dangling from the tree outside our place.
She turned to me and said, "Dadda, can you get that coconut?"
I looked into her expecting eyes and thought, "I might not be able to hold on to my job, but, goddamn it, if I can't get my daughter a coconut."
I took off my shirt, flicked my flip-flops, and made a beeline for the tree.
I'm no Tarzan, but the tree was fourteen feet tall, which is tall but not that tall, and it had a heavy slant that I felt would make it easier for me to get on the tree and get the coconut.
But I was wrong.
I could barely hold on to it, so I had to rest my chest against the trunk as I slunk and scratched my way to the top.
After slipping no less than forty-five times, I finally made it to the top, only to find out the coconut was REALLY attached to the tree!
It is nothing like picking a raspberry, which you can almost do telepathically. You just look at it, and the raspberry pops into your hand.
It's not the same with a coconut. They are really there. So I started bitch slapping the coconut into submission.
It felt good when that little branch holding the coconut gave in to my superior karate chopping technique and let go.
I slid down the tree with scratches all over my body, but with a sense of accomplishment I had not felt in a while, only to learn that getting a coconut is easy; opening a coconut is an adventure on its own.
I didn't have a machete, so I tried the next best thing.
I don't know where I learned this, but I knew that I could bang the husk out.
I walked over to the parking lot with my daughters in tow and started smashing the coconut against the parking lot's asphalt.
After the first loud smack, my daughters were cheering me on.
Then, I started banging the coconut against a giant rock next to the parking lot.
As I noticed the threads of the husk loosening, I started ripping the fibers to uncover the shell.
After twenty minutes of repeated movements, banging against the rock, banging against the asphalt, and pulling the skin back, we finally had a much smaller ball in our hands.
I saw that the rock I had been using as a blunt object had a pointy top. I used it to push through the pores and pour out the water into a glass.
Once the water was done, we went back to the rock and smashed the coconut into several pieces to get to the meat inside.
It was like manna from heaven, but it wasn't better than seeing the look on my daughters' faces, "Wow, my dad can do that!"
I knew then that things would be okay because I am unbelievably handsome, fun-loving, and funny—not to mention very brown AND I can open a coconut.
