Let’s be honest: we’ve all received a gift we have hated. Usually we can handle it with a fake smile, a fake gush of enthusiasm, and the awkward moment is over. 

Other times, we wish we had learned how to perform magic to make items entirely disappear without anyone seeing it happen. 

My hated gift was one of those latter times.

I was working in Bangladesh and visiting homes in one of the oldest places in the refugee camps that border Myanmar. Although there had been an explosion of Rohingya, the Muslim minority in Myanmar, fleeing religious persecution in 2018, there were camps that had already been settled there for 20 years prior. There were people who had been born in those camps and raised entirely into adulthood, living as refugees.

Whether refugee camps have existed long enough to raise a new generation or have popped up in the span of a few short months, there’s no shortage of entrepreneurs who establish their businesses right where they’ve been planted.

My interpreter and I had finished our work for the day and were heading back to the car when we passed by a man selling a little bit of produce. My interpreter wanted to buy something, and I watched the exchange without understanding the words: the man pulled out a sampling of some kind of fruit, got some weights to put on one side of his scale, and carefully weighed out the fruit to match the equivalent weight that my interpreter had presumably requested. A quick exchange of money and we were on our way.

“Here, have one of these,” my interpreter graciously offered to me. “I don’t know the English word for this. Do you know what it is?” 

It looked kind of like an avocado but it wasn’t one. I had no idea what it was, so I couldn’t offer him the English word. But I do enjoy trying new fruits and vegetables. What’s the worst that can happen? 

“Thank you!” I said. And I did mean it. I wondered what it might taste like. It was firm like an apple. Would it taste kind of like an apple? Would it be something less sweet, maybe even a vegetable? Would it be crispy or soft? I carried it in the palm of my hand wondering about its taste and texture. I’d soon find out. 

We got back in the car and we waited for the driver. I suddenly realized I wasn’t sure how to eat it. Do you peel the fruit? Bite into it? Would it be juicy and messy, or firm and clean? 

I pretended to pause for a moment so I could watch my interpreter. He bit right into it like it was an apple. 

So I did the same.

The split second my teeth pierced the skin, I realized I had been duped. Betrayed. Cat-fished. Baited and switched. Deceived. That thing had lied to me. It told me it was interesting to try, maybe something sweet and good, and it definitely wasn’t.

Apparently, cucumbers come in different shapes and sizes. And that’s what I had just bitten into. The inglorious, disgusting, hated, gag-inducing cucumber, the worst of the worst of all foods to exist. In my strong, and correct, opinion.

I swallowed that first bite I took. I tried to be positive about the experience. “It was a gift, so you need to be thankful,” I told myself. “You’ll survive. It’ll be a challenge, but you can eat it.”

I took a second bite.

”This is going to take a lot of work.” My willpower was rapidly evaporating. More like cotton candy touching water.

I took a third bite.

If I take one more bite I’m going to involuntarily throw up. I backed out of it, holding back my gag reflex with all the strength I could muster. Three bites of cucumber had rapidly put me over the edge, and I was fighting to hold back my bodily reaction to it. 

What’s worse than rejecting a gift? Puking it back up. 

I knew I couldn’t do that, so I had to create a second plan: hide the thing. But how?

I couldn’t just make that wretched gift just suddenly disappear. He’d either notice I “ate it” way too quickly and offer another one— the worst kind of horror— or he’d realize I didn’t like it and feel badly for giving me something I didn’t like— a lesser horror, but still something I didn’t want to put him through. 

I pretended to suddenly get very busy with my notebook, taking notes furiously. On what, I don’t know. Probably a list of strategies on how to make hated gifts disappear. Meanwhile, he happily munched away on cucumber in hand. The smell filled the air, making my sense of urgency even greater to be out of this situation. All I knew was that my note taking gave a plausible reason for why I had paused from eating. 

Eventually he finished eating his cucumber snack, thank God, and I knew enough time had passed that he wouldn’t be aware if I had also finished my cucumber, or if I had stashed it, three missing bites, straight into the depths of my backpack. 

The “cucumber disappearing into a backpack” magic trick had worked. He missed the sleight of hand. 

He smiled, satisfied I had apparently enjoyed the gift. I smiled back, satisfied not with the hated gift, but with satisfaction in getting away with it. He mistook that as mutual agreement that the cucumber was good. 

He quickly palmed a new, fresh cucumber. 

“Want another one?”