I had the distinct pleasure last week of supervising a boy at camp who couldn’t go outside due to life-threatening pollen allergies. So I sat with him each day while he ate. The first day, however, I witnessed something that made the back of my throat do a million front flips.

He took out of his lunch cooler a plastic bag with a strange-looking cylinder inside- a pale translucent item that was bleeding all over inside the bag. You can see where this one is going- yes- a peeled, whole cucumber. I remember the odor so precisely.

So this kid takes it out and just crunches into it like an apple, chewing madly and then biting it again. Cucumber juice rolls down his chin and collects in little droplets, and I see all of the sad vegetable as it is being chewed because his mouth is WIDE OPEN and preparing to take another bite.

This was a child who didn’t really take personal space into consideration, so as I was turning my head, trying not to watch the slaughter of the innocent cucumber, he put his face inches from mine and asked, “What are we doing for a craft today?” in his awful, awful, cucumber breath.

This boy brought in a cucumber every single day of camp and ate the whole entire nasty thing in front of me!

Isn’t it just great that the most adamant gourd-hater in the world got to supervise this little cucumber aficionado?