Pointless in New York

by The Cybershopaholic

I am striving for pointlessness in my life. Many people think I have already achieved this. The point I am trying to make is that my life would be much simpler if it weren't for all these point accumulation systems floating out there in cyberspace.

So far I have resisted signing up for, or actively pursuing many of them. Yet, I am deeply troubled by them. I feel like I'm leaving money lying on the table. As a confirmed cybershopaholic, this is bothersome. I know these reward sytems all sound wonderful and oh, so simple - why, even the dumbest rat can press a button and get a food pellet. You just rack up X number of points and cash them in for the item of your choice. I still can't handle it.

I have been bedeviled for years by all manner of these point-total, punch-card, stamp-book, save your bar code and box top systems for scoring free stuff. From long distance phone company rewards to frequent flyer miles, there's a new system born every minute. Each of these programs has come complete with a point accumulation, tracking and redemption system so bizarre, it could only have been invented by people fired by the IRS for being too bureaucratic.

I would get these big, glossy, full color packages in the mail, containing updates on my accounts. I could never quite make out whether I had enough points to purchase a small country or just enough to buy postage to write to someone in a small country. The statements read: your point total was calculated by a band of recluse monks living in a cave in northern Tibet, they have psychically tracked your purchases and have concluded that you are pointless, existentially speaking. Another company's system was still more cryptic and I think it involved monkeys throwing monkey-do at a wall chart of numbers, but we don't need to go into that here. My fundamental question to these companies is this: instead of hiring monks, cleaning up after monkeys, not to mention mailing out these expensive updates, why not just forget the song and dance and lower your prices?

OK, OK - I take it back. I feel the deaths of hundreds of marketing fairies all over the world. Never mind, I believe, I believe. Just cash in 2,000 points, you can have mine, and replace those scorched wings.

Even though the point-reward system was too much for me, I was still a sucker for the old tried and true card-carrying concept. I had a card for every store I went to, not a credit card, that's a whole other column, but a punch card of some sort. I was carrying a milk card, a greeting card card, a coffee club card, a video rental card, and a card that showed that if I bought a dozen bras, my thirteenth one would be free. (That's a savings of a nickel a breast, each month, over a two-year period - wow!) I even had a 'call mom' card. Only nine more punches and I get written back into her will.

Shortly after my wallet exploded from all this excess paper I was lugging around, it occurred to me that I had never successfully cashed in on any of these frequent buyer cards. I would either lose the card, after it was full of course, the business would close, they would end the promotion, or we would move.

So when all these point, click and collect deals started popping up on-line, my mouse hand froze. Could I possibly cash in on anything before the dot.com went to cyber heaven? When I could resist no longer, I signed up for a pay-to-surf bar. I should have noticed the theme music to Jaws began playing as soon as I downloaded it. I was an unsuspecting surfer about to get munched. My password had barely been confirmed before this place started changing the rules faster than a bunch of five-year-olds playing tag. Huh, uhnnn, you're it because you didn't touch the big tree and since I'm wearing red, I get to call who has to be frozen....

So my point is... That's strange, I don't seem to have one. Hey, I kinda like that.

Posted by mayor at March 7, 2005 11:41 PM

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