Service

Today, Melanie and I had another run in with "service" in Durham. Our truck has corroded battery connectors, and a couple of times, the connection has come loose from the battery, and we need to open the hood, and kind of clean off the terminals and then reattach the wires - no big deal. Well, it happened to us today when we went shopping at Walmart. I popped open the lid, and then a guy materialized from nowhere offering to help clean off the battery terminals. He did so, and then we restarted the truck. We thought that he was just being helpful - but then he asked for money from us. This kind of thing irritates me, and so I refused, at which point he got extremely annoyed at us, and tried as hard as he could to guilt trip us out of money. I mean - this was actually a problem that we could have (and would have) solved ourselves, and I don't like to be pressured in that way. This little incident really irks me because it makes it so that I don't trust people. The next time we are in a similar situation, should I refuse help from someone else because they might be trying to take advantage of me? Should we have helped him out financially (Melanie noted that it could be a better practise than simply begging for money, and it could be that he really needed it). I really don't know what would have been the best response would be, but I have learned one thing: I need to replace the battery connectors in the truck.