“Can I help you there buddy?”

I’m often cheered up by the number of people who go out of their way to offer me help, especially cheered if it’s a young person. Getting out of the car, loading the car, when shopping etc. The real challenge is whether I should accept the offer or not.

One one hand, every situation is a challenge to myself. I can do virtually anything, so long as it’s in my own way and at my own pace. I value my independence and get a genuine feeling of accomplishment when I’ve dealt with an especially trying situation.

On the other hand, I’m very grateful that people offer and I want to encourage them to keep offering. If I say “no, thanks”, maybe they won’t make a similar offer to someone else in the future who’d really benefit from assistance, whereas if I accept gratefully, maybe they’ll be the one with the feeling of accomplishment and they’ll keep offering.

Where I usually end up is that if I’m holding others up, I’m happy for the help. But if I’m not, I say “no thanks, but thank you for offering.”

I have heard of some people in wheelchairs being asked “Can I help you?” in a way that seemed to mean “I’d like to get you out of my shop as fast as possible.” and I agree that you can understand a lot from people’s tone of voice. We with disabilities have as much right as anyone to go and shop where we like. So the challenge there would be to keep the response PG-rated I believe!