my teleme­try tech is a retired physi­cian, anes­the­si­ol­o­gist, hos­pi­tal owner & army gen­eral. from time to time i ask him ques­tions about cul­ture, med­i­cine and even rela­tion­ship advice. (i fig­ure such an accom­plished man’s wis­dom might be worth hear­ing, and learning).

last night he told me about the early goings of his mar­riage. the day of their wed­ding his wife told him sim­ply, ‘i can­not cook, all through­out child­hood i always had some­one to cook for me so i did not have to learn’. and in response he told her ‘it’s fine i know very well how to cook, but there must be some­thing that you’re good at’. ‘i used to sing in pub­lic places through­out med school’ she said. and so he told her ‘that’s great, i’ll cook, while you sing’.

and so he cooked, and so she sang. a year into their mar­riage, that’s what they did. until one day he made plans to play golf. so his wife told him ‘since you’re play­ing golf today, i’ll cook for you’. so she cooked for him, and he hap­pily ate what she had made. another day passes, and again she offers to cook for him. again she cooked, again he ate.

one day she decides that she would play golf with him. and so she cooked for the both of them. as she ate the meal that she has been prepar­ing for him, her first reac­tion was to spit out the food and ask, ‘yuck, how can you eat that? it is so bit­ter! why have u never said any­thing!’. he responds to her; ‘because i appre­ci­ate that you are try­ing to cook for me. and because of that, to me it is sweet.’

he told me that from that day on, she devel­oped such great respect for him and how he hon­ors her as his wife, that from that day on; every time he went to go play golf, she went to go, to a cook­ing class.

awe­some.