Cameras in the Palm Trees
Years ago, when I was living in Hawaii, my friends and I spent most days half-baked and sunburned on a beach in Waikiki—Fort Something-or-other, the one closest to my apartment. It was our spot. We’d post up with a bong and no sense of time, like the world had agreed to leave us alone.
Then this lifeguard shows up, straight outta nowhere, looking like he just got promoted to God’s personal security detail.
He tells us we can’t be smoking there—“technically federal property.”
And then, dead serious, he adds:
“There are cameras in the palm trees. They feed straight to a satellite police station up the beach.”
Cameras. In. The. Trees.
We all just stared at him like he’d caught a sunstroke, but something in his voice stuck.
Fast-forward six or seven hours. The sun’s gone. We’ve all crashed in the sand.
I wake up groggy as hell. My roommate’s in the hospital, so I’m watching her chihuahua—sweet little thing named Pico or Rico, something like that. Last I remembered, he was curled up on my chest like a tiny, vibrating space heater.
Now he’s gone.
No leash, no pawprints, no barking—just gone.
I’m stumbling up and down the beach like a lunatic, shaking people awake:
“Have you seen a small tan dog?”
Blank stares. Shrugs. Nothing.
I start imagining the worst—swept out by the tide, eaten by a shark, abducted by some drunk tourist. The longer I looked, the less real it all felt. Like the dog never existed, and I’d dreamed the whole thing.
Then I remember the lifeguard.
The cameras. The damn palm trees.
So I call 911.
I know it’s not an emergency, but at that point, my brain’s off the rails. I tell the operator,
“Hey, sorry, I know this isn’t the right number, but I lost a little dog on the beach, and I remember someone saying there were cameras in the palm trees. Is there any way you could check the footage?”
There’s a pause. Then the dispatcher says, deadpan:
“You’re right. This isn’t an emergency… but this is crazy.”
She tells me she just got off a call—from the chef at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
Someone found a tiny dog.
They’ve got him at the hotel.
My jaw hits the sand.
Two 911 calls about the same chihuahua within minutes.
So I sprint. Ten minutes tops, barefoot, half-dreaming. The hotel’s mostly shut down, all quiet except for one glowing steakhouse like a portal to another dimension.
And there—under soft light, linen tablecloth, surrounded by hula dancers—is Pico.
Sitting on a chair like a guest of honor.
Being hand-fed filet mignon by two women in flower crowns.
I just stood there, salt-streaked and speechless, watching this little dog live a better life than I ever had.
For a second, I almost believed the lifeguard was right.
Maybe there were cameras in the trees.
Maybe they weren’t watching us—maybe they were just watching him.
