The Coconut

I would never survive if I was stranded on an island.  Why?  Because I have the hardest time cracking the tough shells of coconuts.

My daughter had the brilliant idea of purchasing a coconut from the produce section.  "Oh, Mom, it would be so cool to drink coconut milk straight from a coconut!"

I reluctantly agreed to give it a try.

I read the instructions on the label.  It said,  "pierce eyes with an icepick."  Who the heck has an ice pick around here?  I mean, if you lived in the Yukon, maybe you''d have an icepick laying around.  At least I figured out what they were talking about when they said, "eyes."

I rummaged through my husband's toolbox to see if I could find anything that might work as an icepick.  I found a hammer and some screwdrivers.  "Good enough," I thought.

I went to work piercing the eyes.  I did a pretty good job with that part, except I was expecting coconut milk to flow out of them.  No such luck.  Hmmm.  Something was very wrong.

Then I proceeded to hack away at the shell, attempting to break it.

I won't go through all the details, but let's just say it wasn't easy, even with my icepick hammer and screwdriver.

When I finally got the shell cracked, I discovered the coconut was old and rotted.  No wonder it had no milk in it!  That darn thing was probably sitting around for ten years in the grocery store!

So not only is it difficult for me to break open a coconut, I can't even pick a good one.  Pretty pathetic!