Weekend from Hell

iPod morning commute music: Nothing. On top of a horrible weekend, I've come down with a cold and only wanted to sleep on the train this morning.

As I mentioned on Friday, Saturday was never going to be a pleasant day, but everything went as planned; health check at 10 a.m., a meeting in Osaka at 3 p.m., back to my dentist near my station at 7 p.m. However, at the dental appointment I was told I would need 2 more appointments (that's 4 appointments total to replace a crown). While I know I should be grateful for the good health care we get here in Japan, one negative is that dentists drag out their work, basically because they get more money that way. What would take 2 appointments in the States takes 4 here, an separate appointment for each procedure. So tonight I have to go again to take an impression (the 2nd impression, BTW) for fitting the crown.

Yesterday, Kaoru and I went to COSTCO to do some shopping and put our snow tires on. When we bought the tires there three years ago, they said they would put them on and off for free, a good deal we thought. A year later they told us their policy had changed, and while they could put the snow tires ON for free, we would have to pay to put our regular tires back on as we hadn't purchased the regular tires at COSTCO. We protested then, and last year as well, and they did the work for free, but I verbally agreed that, from this year, I would pay to have them put on the regular tires. We showed up yesterday, and they told us because ALL our tires weren't COSTCO purchases, NONE of them could be put on for free. Again we argued, and they finally said they would put the snow tires on for free this year, but we would need to pay from next year. And so sorry, but because they were so busy, it would take 5 hours to do the work.

Kaoru and I got into the store, looked at each other, and decided enough's enough. We ended up complaining to the manager. It did not take 5 hours to change our tires, and we do not have to pay anything. Of course, the tire people probably hate us, but such is life.

All in all, a pretty awful weekend.