I was about to leave a store tonight when I encountered a family coming in. The father stood outside holding one of the doors while the rest of the family entered. Seeing me waiting to leave after his family went through, he considerately decided to hold the door for me too, thinking he was being helpful (although I could’ve easily opened the door for myself).
But instead of continuing to hold the door as he did for his family—which would’ve worked out just fine—he must have thought I am four feet wide. He grabbed the second door with his other hand and opened it too. Discovering he was then smack dab in the middle of the doorway, he tried to shift off to one side. There he was, precariously leaning to one side so he could still hold the far door and expecting me to limbo under his outstretched arms (or levitate over him?). Not wanting to sniff his armpits on the way out, I politely suggested that holding just one of the doors would be fine.
The easiest thing for him to do would have been to simply let go of one door and step to the side. But no! He decides to first step inside the door and try to hold it open from there (even though it swung out). Now he was awkwardly stretched out struggling to hold the door open with one arm from the far side. With a wall to the side of the door, he had no choice but to stand at the edge of my path of egress. So there he was expecting me to treat his toes as speed bumps as I waltzed with him through the narrow space he left in the doorway.
Not wanting a lawsuit for flattening his feet, I then suggested he step outside—where he was holding the door for his family in the first place—and hold it from there (what a novel idea!). He begrudgingly obliged me and I was finally able to easily exit. But now he was giving me a look like how dare I be so rude and ungrateful as to tell him how to “help” me.
So here’s the moral of the story: if us people with disabilities need help, we’ll ask for it. And if we ask for help with a door, a wheelchair can easily fit through a single one, so don’t try to hold both of them. But the caveat is that it’s best if you do it from the side to which the door opens and stand out of the way as the wheelchair passes through—for your own sake.
And to the man who I encountered tonight, thank you for at least trying to be helpful. But if you want to dance with me, next time save it for when we meet at the nightclub.
The Progressive Zone 