I'm a sucker for a deal. I love sales, coupons, bonuses, incentives, buy-one-get-one free, ninety days same as cash - any kind of come-on that involves capital letters and exclamation points. I clip coupons, and send in rebate forms. I sign up for frequent flyer miles, and credit card cash back offers. I've been known to do an end zone happy dance at the grocery store checkout when I break my own coupon-savings record. Putting together a great bargain is the only kind of financial wheeling and dealing I excel at. I love figuring out creative ways to justify spending money. Lately though, my joy has been seriously diminished. There seems to be a movement afoot to torment people like me by making it as hard as humanly possible to pay anything but the maximum full price.

Let's start with frequent flier miles. I'm accruing them in three different places: US Airways, American Express, and Sprint. After a decade of paying more for my long distance calls than anyone I know, I finally have enough points to get a few plane tickets. We decided to cash in those points to take Eric and the baby to see my mom and step-dad this coming August. Last month, I called the Sprint Points Redemption Center to get the ball rolling. Easy enough. Ten years worth of phone calls were magically transformed into two round-trip plane tickets. The trouble began when we were so bold as to request seats on an actual plane headed to the state of Wyoming in August 2001. Evidently, the airlines have allotted only two seats for frequent fliers, both on a red-eye flight headed for Toad Gulch, Nebraska, on November 16th. I calmly explained that, lovely as Toad Gulch no doubt is, I needed to get to Wyoming in August. The helpful Sprint agent pointed out that it wasn't her fault that my mother insisted on living 1) in the middle of nowhere, and 2) near an airport that is used primarily by movie stars, dotcom millionaires, and vacationing attorneys, i.e., Jackson Hole. I noted that since we were booking these seats in March, a good four months prior to our planned departure, that perhaps we were not being terribly unreasonable in thinking that there might be room for us in say, one of the overhead bins. Then I heard it: the sigh. You've heard the sigh, that intake of breath, the slow exhalation, which says, "I'm dealing with a real crank here." Being just co-dependent enough to want to be dear friends with everyone I encounter, I immediately backed off, acknowledging that only a lunatic would require something so demented as a seat on a plane four months in advance, and asked Miss Sprint - in my sanest tones - if there was any other airport we could fly into. "How about Salt Lake City?" she inquired. Well, for starters, that would be in Utah - a different state altogether than Wyoming, though with our national grade-school test scores slipping, I can almost understand how all that land west of the Mississippi just kind of runs together for some folks. I accepted this alternative, partly because it's only a three hour drive to my mom's house, and mostly because I needed desperately to begin screaming and yanking out my hair in frustration and thought it best to do that after hanging up the phone. Total time spent booking my free trip (albeit to another state than I'd originally intended): one hour, fifteen minutes. Don't think I blame Sprint; oh no, I've dealt directly with the airlines in the past and have learned that there is no greater aggravation possible than to attempt a frequent flier mile redemption. It's the airline's way of saying, "Hey, you've been an extraordinarily loyal customer. Ha ha ha ha. Bite me."

Ever had a kid show up at your door selling those "entertainment" books, the ones that claim to offer hundreds of great discounts at restaurants, shops and movies? I can never say no to a school fundraiser, so over the years I've bought at least half a dozen of these things. In the beginning, I was foolish enough to try to actually use them. Once you get past the twenty or thirty pages of "get free small fries when you buy two value meals with drinks" coupons, there are usually some interesting restaurants that you'd like to try. I took my book and membership card with me to an ethnic restaurant, and had the following exchange:

WAITER: "What this is? I never see this before."

ME: "Look, this is your restaurant, right? Here's my card and the coupon. It says here that one of our entrees is free. In this entertainment book? See?"

WAITER: "You don't pay? What is this? Safook come here! (I should point out that I'm guessing at the spelling of Safook's name.) Look at this. She says she doesn't pay."

SAFOOK: "This is no good. What is this? You don't like your food? I don't know what this is."

ME: "Never mind. Do you take American Express?"

That was the last time I attempted to use any fabulous book of incredible savings. When the kids come to the door now, I just buy the book, take it to work, and abandon it in the ladies room. Let some other, more courageous soul brave the scorn and contempt that accompanies any honest effort to get a freebie. I've had similar hassles with my AAA membership. It's great for renting cars or booking hotels, but just try using it with any small company. Only last month, we had the gall to use AAA to cut the cost of an exciting boat ride through the Louisiana swamps to look for alligators. The cashier rolled her eyes, snorted in irritation, and slapped a couple of stickers on us reading "Gator Bait". No one else on the boat was so demeaned - the other passengers were all "Honorary Cajuns". Being well used to this sort of discrimination, I soldiered on bravely. But my poor husband suffered a crushing blow to his pride. It was hard being the only male gator bait on the boat. Last summer, the whitewater rafting company we booked a float trip on offered an AAA discount, but when we showed up, the Birkenstocked-and-dreadlocked teenage runaway manning the counter gazed blankly at the card, at us, and the sky outside. "Whoa," she said. "I'm gonna have to call somebody. I like, already wrote you up, and stuff, and like, I don't know what this is or anything." "Never mind." I answered. "Do you take American Express?"

Some people are too embarrassed, I'm told, to use discounts or coupons. I'll be the first to admit that one can be made to feel like a criminal when trotting out a "buy-one-get-one-free" offer, but are we supposed to just roll over and let corporate America trample all over us? They know that when we sign up for extended warranties, or special membership discounts, that most of us will never, ever use those services. I think that's why they look askance when you actually show up and demand your deal. (One exception is Land Rover, where God help you if you don't buy the extended warranty, and believe me, they're nicer to you than your own family every step of the way. Land Rover has spent more money on me through my extended warranty than it cost my parents to raise me.) It's your right as a consumer to pay a fair price for goods and services, and if a merchant promises you a bargain, it's your right to get it - no matter who rolls their eyes or complains.

There's an old saying that rings very true for me: Once poor, never rich. Sure, I may have a good job now and plenty of money for food and clothing, but it wasn't always so. I've been poor, dirt-scratching, missing meals, sick-without-medicine poor. There was a time in my life when, if I found an article of clothing on the street, I took it home, washed it, and wore it. I've been on welfare. I've sold plasma. I've stood in line for free government cheese. Is it any wonder that today I'll drive a little out of my way to save a few bucks? I'm not ashamed of having been poor, in fact, looking back, I'm glad for the experience. Without it, who knows what kind of spoiled, nasty, debt-ridden princess I'd have become? I know I have the potential in me - maybe poverty tempered it. So leave me alone if I want to clip coupons. Get off my back if I expect a discount that is rightfully mine. Stop making it so bloody hard to redeem my frequent flier miles. Don't laugh when I enter stupid contests, or buy the occasional lottery ticket. What's it to you? My only regret is that I haven't taken all the money I've saved over the years and invested it. No, the coupon savings at the grocery store get funneled into weirdly expensive venison dog food at Petsmart. The tiny amount nicked from the travel or vacation budget ends up going to the lamest possible tourist trap or souvenir stand we can find. There isn't the slightest point in taking me to task over the illogic of my behavior - I won't listen. I'm too busy figuring out where my next gift-with-purchase is coming from. Or checking in at overstock.com. Or mailing in my UPC codes for cereal box prizes. I'm a busy woman - you think a great deal just does itself?