I have to fill out a visitors form when I swim at my backup pool that asks for the name and number of my emergency contact. This has been a bit of a challenge. It used to be a no brainer – my emergency contact was my wife. Before her, it was my mom.
What I want to write on the form is “Call 911” if there’s an emergency. But, I’m a compliant guy. So I write down my mother’s name and a fake phone number. My mother is elderly, in poor health and lives 400+ miles away in another state. She can’t help in an emergency.
It would be better for me to write down my neighbor – who kindly gave me a ride home from the hospital after outpatient surgery. But there’s no way I’m putting his name down. He’s got his own family to attend to.
I could put down another neighbor who I see every day when out walking. But since we don’t know each other’s last names I could see him fielding a call and saying, “Who the f&*% is that?”
I have a good friend in Pittsburgh who is my “extreme circumstances” emergency contact. If called, he’d make sure to get my dogs boarded safely so they didn’t starve to death and would contact my sister to let her know I was incapacitated or dead. But, like my mother, he’s an 8 hour drive away.
It’s an interesting dilemma that I’ve thought about several times since my wife died. I’ve heard that some single people make a pact with a friend to be each other’s “emergency contact”.
I would need to make a friend who lives closer to me for that. It might happen someday.
When I was on the dating apps, a number of women listed in their profiles that they were looking for an “emergency contact”. I didn’t even know what they meant by that at first. But eventually, I understood it was a playful way of saying they wanted a committed relationship/boyfriend/husband.
I don’t consider this much of a problem at all. I rarely need to go to the backup pool. I haven’t had a lot of surgeries. And I have absolutely no intention of hanging onto life in the event that I’m in a tragic accident or diagnosed with a terminal illness.
Still, it kind of leaves me with a rudderless feeling.