And the listing goes to....

I have arrived at a conundrum in my life – whom to list as an emergency contact. I’m the one that’s usually contacted in an emergency. I can’t list one definitive person to contact in an emergency because it depends on the emergency. Let me give you a few examples.

I work at the U of M (East Bank). If you’ve ever had to even drive through the East Bank, you may have an idea of how hard it is to find parking. I have a really good idea of how hard it is to find parking. Thanks to a combination of Minneapolis’ finest and some possibly shady towing companies, I have a much better understanding of street laws that we all tend to forget the second after we pass our drivers tests. I have fractured a few of these street laws, some of which have led to what may or may not be legal tows. This has been somewhat of an emergency in the past depending on what my future schedule is. I have called a neighbor, my mother, a friend, and once was lucky enough to catch a co-worker before she left her office. I don’t feel right listing the neighbor, the friend, or the co-worker as an emergency contact on my passport. If I’m detained in Thailand for any reason or have a heart attack on an airplane, I couldn’t imagine that those three people would be able to do much about it. If my mother were called, she would need more help than I would and that’s just with driving directions.

When I was in 8th grade, I broke a piece off of my foot bone while working on a new dismount on the uneven parallel bars. My mother was called for this emergency and my brother also showed up because he was in the gym just down the hallway with the rest of his wrestling teammates. My spotter, who would go on to be an outstanding member of the N. Minneapolis police dept., joked around because they were in the same class and I was an easy target being dizzy and all from those deep breaths everyone kept telling me to take. I think they just wanted to see me dizzy. This was a pretty easy emergency contact listing since one usually doesn’t have any choice when in school. They don’t ask you for an emergency contact, they ask you who your parents/guardians are and write down that information, assuming that these people will be able to step into any situation and get you out of it. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty big assumption.

I stepped on a nail in my garage two years ago and I didn’t call anyone. I drove myself to Urgent Care, which isn’t open that early on a Sunday so one is forced to go to the emergency room. I was a bit torn on this one because I’m not certain it was an emergency but it was “a gusher” and I couldn’t get the image of the rust from the nail breaking off into my blood stream, floating up to my head and making my brain explode. Both the doctor and nurse were incredibly handsome. That’s too off-point though, sorry.

Last January, I agreed to go in to the hospital for a week for a video monitoring session recommended by my neurologist to see if seizure activity could be captured and recorded. This wasn’t an emergency, it was voluntary and planned for ahead of time. What I learned from this is that I don’t necessarily need people for emergencies, I need people for things I can plan ahead for. I needed someone to check on The Cat and take in my mail. Mail should be taken in because that’s a beacon to any potential burglars who may be staking out the joint. It also pisses off the mail carriers when the box gets too full to put more mail into. The Cat has to be looked after because he’s a living entity that requires food and water. I can dump a bunch of food into a bowl and provide enough water with those cool bottle contraptions to last a week, but The Cat also requires human contact. As far as cats are concerned, he’s quite the hard ass. Where humans are concerned, he needs love and attention every day. My neighbor (a different one from the towing neighbor) graciously agreed to cover this for me.

These past experiences have all led me to this point in time. I have to list an emergency contact at work, oddly for the same reason we had to list someone when we were 10. I also have to write one in on my passport. Not only am I trying to decide whom to write down, I am trying to decide if I even need to write anyone down at all.

If I end up in the hospital yet am conscious and have full mental capacity (at least as much as I currently have) then the person I would want to contact is my neighbor so she can take care of The Cat. If I am unconscious and the medical staff needs my medical history, they’ll have it in the computer system and I usually don’t step outside without having my ID on me so even if I end up on the shores of the Mississippi, they’ll be able to get to my medical records. I’d still need the neighbor to watch The Cat but I’d also need her to contact my supervisor so I don’t get fired for three no-call/no-shows in a row. If I don’t have my ID on me, then it won’t matter who I list because they won’t know where to look to find my emergency contact information. If I’m held in detention at the Mexican border, I’m going to need the neighbor for supervisor alert, The Cat, and to also grab my checkbook kept in my house to work on transferring funds down to pay off the policia. That settles it then, I’m going with the neighbor.

This little exercise has proven to be quite enlightening. It’s interesting to find out what you’d really categorize as an emergency. Gee, I hope I’m not forgetting anything.