Look, I trust my wife with my life, but every time I’m asked to list an emergency contact on insurance paperwork or when leaving for a whitewater rafting trip, I put myself down instead of her. Here are my reasons for this decision:
1. Men deal with emergencies better
While women tend to be much more in touch with their emotions than men, there are certain situations that are best handled in a cold, calculated manner. If I’m found on the floor next to my table saw spurting blood everywhere or in a country road ditch with my legs trapped in the bent-up frame of my Harley, I want the person hearing about it to be as detached from their emotions as possible when they’re making life-or-death decisions such as which hospital to take to to or whether or not to remove me from life support. I can imagine my wife hearing the news that I’d taken a softball to the temple and lost an eye and turning into a screaming, sobbing mess without anything useful to offer the already chaotic, terrifying situation. Personally, I think I could push aside my emotions, stay calm, and deal with my possible impending death with a much cooler head than my wife could.
2. If something is wrong with me, I want to know right away
Imagine a scenario where I’m in a coma or in desperate need of a heart transplant. The hospital first needs to get ahold of my wife, which could take hours, and then she needs to get ahold of me, which could also take hours, to let me know what’s going on. In an emergency, every second counts, so why not just cut out the middle man and take the information that I was the victim of a vicious acid attack or ate poisoned meat straight to me? As much as I’m sure she’d love to know what was going on with me, it doesn’t directly affect her like it does me, so in my opinion, I’m the one they should call.
3. I might have questions for the police that my wife doesn’t think of
My wife is great at a lot of things, like baking and being a surgeon, but she doesn’t always think like a detective the way I do. If my body is found in an old refrigerator in the woods or it appears I attempted to take my own life, I might have questions and concerns that might help the police with the investigation. Like, if I’m missing my wristwatch, that could be a clue, or if I was last seen with a strange man outside of a bowling alley, I might know who that strange man was. No disrespect to my wife, but if the only questions she’s going to be asking are things like, “Does it look like he’s going to make it?” and “Where are they taking his body,” I’d rather be the one who gets that call.
4. She probably wouldn’t want to know
My wife can barely handle it when I cut my fingers off while slicing onions, so if I’m having a full-blown gory, disturbing, scary medical emergency, she’s probably better off not knowing about it. Sure, at some point she’s going to see it in the newspaper or hear about it on Facebook, but if something bad happens to me, I’d like to give the poor woman as much time as possible before she finds out about it. If I can give my wife even a few days of being blissfully unaware that I’m trapped in a mineshaft as my last gift to her, I’m going to do it.
5. She might be busy
Since I got laid off and decided to stay home with the dogs full time, my wife’s life has been pretty hectic. Sometimes it takes her hours to respond to my texts asking if she got the Disney+ sign-in code email, and I wouldn’t want a bunch of calls from firefighters and brain doctors and foreign embassies and hot air balloon captains overwhelming her during her shift at the children’s hospital. I’ve got more free time to deal with my bullshit and I feel bad bothering her with it all the time.
6. I don’t know her phone number
Yeah, yeah, we’ve been married for 14 years, but how often do you actually dial someone’s phone number these days? Honestly, the only phone number I have memorized is mine, and I barely even know that one. So when I’m handed a clipboard at the oral surgeon and they ask me for my emergency contact, they’re lucky I can even give them my own number! Hopefully no one ever needs to call my emergency contact in an emergency, but if they ever do, that emergency contact is going to be me.
