What Is The Role Of A Husband?

The 2019 Smash Cake Story.

Here’s the broad structure of “the smash cake” story: In November 2019, my wife was in Argentina with her friend. Before she left, she had made a “smash cake” for a one-year-old birthday party, but hadn’t had a chance to deliver it. The party was 45 minutes away, driving. She asked me to get it over there. I admittedly did contemplate finding a way out of this situation, albeit very briefly, and then just did it. So, 90 minutes round trip with a stop with the parents of the one-year-old. All-in, maybe three hours of my time on a Saturday. Two hysterical things happened: (1) I was walking my dog by a bar near my house and saw an old, crotchety lesbian woman sitting there. When I got back from delivering the cake, hours later, I went into the same bar and the same woman was still there and (2) the father of that child told me, “There’s really no reason for you to stay at this party,” a statement I had incredible respect for.

The “smash cake” thing becomes a question because, in the intervening four years, I’ve asked different guys and women about this story. Most guys say, “Oh, I wouldn’t do that. I’d get out of that.” Most women say, “I highly doubt my husband would do that.”

Hmmm.

So what exactly is the role of a husband, then? If you can’t drive a cake 90 minutes round-trip when your partner is out of town?

The obvious answers are: