The previous post speaks of how happy I was that the Dutch bike shop fixed everything that was ever wrong with my bicycle. I'm still happy with that, but today I found out that the one thing they were supposed to fix, they didn't. The rear tire still goes flat after a day or two. How did the mechanic miss this?
Interesting detail: the tire did not deflate immediately. It's fine for a couple of hours until it starts to seriously deflate. When I brought my bicycle to the shop there was an old gentleman picking up his bicycle, and that same mechanic that fixed my bicycle went to great lengths in explaining to the gentleman that they had to replace his rear inner tube because it was porous and slowly (although not measurably in short-term) deflating. Exactly what was wrong with my tire. I did point that out to the mechanic, but when I went to pick it up he said that the valve was just a little loose and that they'd fixed it. Very much not so.
Anyway, lesson learned, again. The golden rule of life once again proven true.
If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.