Today I had to get new tires put on my car and have a regular service (i.e. oil change, etc.) done on it.  I asked Dean to speak to the mechanic, b/c, having grown up working at a service station, he at least understands what is essential and what is a mark up.  I told Dean what I was okay with paying.

Dean calls me, and tells me the amount, and that he'd approved them to move forward on it.  Only the problem was that while the tires were within my budget, there was an additional charge for the alignment, plus the cost for rest of the service.  The cost was going to be around $150 above my budget.  But Dean had already approved it.  Ok, not happy, but I'll suck it up.  It's already very tight for a while, but I'll just keep eating boring salads and saving my pennies, and somehow make it work.

I go to pick up the car, and the final cost is $130 above what Dean had mentioned.  I must admit that "freak out" is probably the best description for my reaction.  The head of the service area is summoned to explain the charges, and the answer is that when they told Dean "Oh, and the regular maintenance is the oil change and brake flush" he was thinking that the brake flush was one of the normal services that is usually part of the oil change.  The oil change was the usual amount that I normally pay.  The brake flush was...ready?...yup, $130.  The only bright spot was that my freak out earned me an additional $15 reduction, because the guys genuinely felt bad that I was being hit with that big a bill unexpectedly, so they reworded a few descriptions so that they could shave a couple more dollars off for me.