SINCERELY YOURS WEEKLY SPECIAL

Yes. You Don’t Know How To Cook (Sincerely Yours)

Again, the conversation has started. Who knows how to cook and who doesn’t?
One would think that this is the solution to the myriad of problems facing the country.

You tried avoiding the conversation. In your opinion, there are a thousand and one other things you are bothered by.
Then he sent you one of the tweets. And a message followed.

“Do you even know how to cook?” You never expected this.
Should you tell him the truth or should you tell him a lie? By the way, whatever you say, how is he supposed to verify it?

You decide to ignore his message. Right now, balancing this formula is more important to you than who can cook and who can’t.
That was until he sent you another tweet. And a message stating that “no man should marry a woman that can’t cook.”
Now you are tempted to reply him. But this formula won’t balance itself. Maybe when you are less busy.

You are finally done with work. You really want to tell him you can cook. Maybe that will make him like you more.
Or respect you. Or just get him off your back.

Instead, you ask him “if real men marry all the women that can cook, who will marry the rest of us?”
He reads it. Then he starts typing. And he keeps typing. This typing is starting to take too long.

But this question doesn’t need an epistle as response. Maybe you shouldn’t have sent him that response.
Finally he replies you. “Stop asking stupid questions.”

Wait. Was that what he has been typing for three minutes now?
“What is foolish about my question? Or women that can’t cook shouldn’t get married? Or men that marry women that can’t cook are lesser men?” This your response will make him explode.
And explode he did.

Rather than texting you, he calls you. He begins to tell you how feminists are destroying the world.
How women want to be the head of the family. That western values are destroying African traditions. That a true African man will not stand for this.

Who is this true African man with a BSc who doesn’t know the way to his father’s village? What is true about a traditional African man that runs to the hospital at the slightest sign of malaria and will never take agbo because it has no dosage or NAFDAC number?
Now he is telling you how his father’s provided for the family and his mother cared for the children.

Wait sir. Mr True African man, hold on. Are you saying that when we get married, I will no longer work?
Don’t worry your pretty head about work. I will work for both of us and our four children. Three boys and one girl to help you with the chores.

Your work will be to make sure the children are happy. You will cook our meals. I think you read food tech in school? That should mean we will be eating plenty oyinbo food.
And chicken peri-peri.

So what will I be doing with the MSc I spent an extra two years getting?
It adds to your value. I’m the only one among my friends marrying a woman with an MSc. Do you know how they look at me? Like a god.

So I should sit at home with my MSc? While you work with your BSc? And you are the head of the family. While my job is to cook and clean.
You also have a job in the “other room”. In fact, that is where your biggest job is.

Maybe my MSc will be useful in the other room.
See, that is why I like you. You went to school to learn something that is useful at home. I don’t even know why I asked if you can cook.

I think food tech is like home economics. It is just an advanced form of cooking and they’ll teach y’all ladies how to cook more meals.
Not like those ladies that do banking and accounting. They will now turn to prostitution in the name of marketing. I will never allow my daughter to try that. She will do food tech like you.

Wait first. How many of those marketers have come to you and how many have you slept with? And why can’t our daughter become a doctor? Or computer programmer?
Those girls in the bank don’t come to me because I don’t have the money yet. And even if I have money, I am too disciplined to give them anything.

If I sleep with any of them like this, she is the one that will go and pack all the money in their bank and give me.
And you are talking of doctors. Don’t you know they use to sleep with each other when they are on night duty?
God forbid my daughter joins them.

As long as it is your daughter that God forbids and not mine, no problem.
What do you mean?
Let us leave that first. What if I tell you I can’t cook?

God forbid!
God forbid that I can’t cook? Instead of you to say you will teach me.
I even forgot. Like three months before our wedding day, you will need to go and live with my mummy.

She will teach you how to cook all the foods I like. She will also teach you how to take care of a husband properly.
Wait. Will she teach me how to take care of you in bed?

No. You joke too much. You should know that by yourself.
And I’m to be a virgin too?
Yes now. Or are you no longer a virgin. I can only marry a virgin.
You can only marry a virgin that can cook. I love that.

I hope you meet both criteria?
Yes of course. I’ve been keeping myself for the right man.
By the way, I forgot to mention. You will be living with my daddy for three months before we marry. He will teach you how I like to be pampered and spoiled.

You are indeed a spoilt girl.
Didn’t you know that before?
And what about my work? You expect me to leave work for three months to live with your dad?
I am the one that should leave work for three months to live with your mom. Because she is the university of wifey duties.

Don’t you dare insult my mother.
Why will I insult your mother? A woman that raised a true African king. I will always respect her until the day I die.
That’s why I love you.

By the way. I may not be the best cook, but I can cook somethings. I know your mother will teach me the rest.
In the meantime, for those days I’ll be sick or tired. Or maybe you just want to surprise me or be a romantic husband. Can you cook?

Why will I know how to cook? Isn’t that the job of the woman? In over thirty years of being alive, I never saw my father in the kitchen, so what am I looking for in the kitchen?

And what if I have to travel?
No wise woman will leave her husband alone and travel. That is how a strange woman will see a route and come and snatch him.

So if I travel, you will get snatched?
Me I’m disciplined. I’m talking about other men.
By the way, we can always order meals if you don’t want to be entering the kitchen.
Meals that I don’t know who cooked it or how they cooked it.

How about we get a house help?
God forbid. We will now bring a witch into our house. My mother raised six of us without a housegirl. We don’t need one.

And you won’t help with any chores.
As the head of the house, my job is to think for the house. Not to cook or clean.
Four children are not too much for one woman to raise. Plus one of them will be a girl and she will be helping you.
Our mothers use to have twelve. I’m saying we should have four and you are complaining.

Why don’t you let us just have twelve?
That is in the olden days. Now, four is enough.
And who told you I want to have four children?
You will have four children in Jesus name. You will give birth to them naturally like the Hebrew women. No doctor will cut your stomach in the name of CS.

And what if I actually need a CS?
God forbid. Stop saying bad things for yourself. You will push like a strong African woman, and the children will come out.

And the next day, I will be back home cooking.
Yes. Because you are strong. Our mothers use to do it. You can do it.
The fact that I just had your baby won’t move you to cook for us?
Maybe your mother will come and help us cook and do other things during that period.

My daughter, I don’t know how trendy or fashionable cooking will be when you get here. I don’t know if it will still be a monthly topic for discussion on social media.
All you need to know is that as long as food is not yet downloadable, I will teach you how to cook.

You will learn how to cook not because your husband needs it, but because you need it. It is both a pleasure and a life skill. It can be a career, but it can also be a hobby.
The choice is yours.

The most important thing you need to know is that you are doing it for yourself.
If ever in life, one fellow predicate his love, respect, and acceptance for you on the premise of your ability to cook, you have my blessings to tell him that you can’t cook.

Your brothers will be awesome cooks too. Your mother will be a great cook. And I cook good enough to rival anyone.
Your worth is not in your culinary or bedroom ability.
One thing I never want to hear is that one boy in school challenged you to cook and you accepted.
That would be very disappointing for me.

The only way you should accept such a challenge is if he gets to cook first. And you taste the food and see if it is decent.
If you still have time to spare, then go ahead to cook. If you have better things to do, just concede that he is a better cook and leave the place.
We both know the truth though.

There is more to you than what one man and his mother think of you. You are meant for more, and I need you to find it.
I pray you find the happiness in cooking. And I pray you find over a thousand other pleasures in this life, and the world to come.

Sincerely yours,
Your loving father,
Wilson J.

Wilson Joshua is a Video Editor, Content Creator, and Creative Writer.
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