the password is: %&*#@!

Remember George Costanza's wallet?
Matt believes that he would need a separate wallet - possibly a backpack - to carry around all the Super Awesome Wild And Crazy Saver Club Cards he's offered. During his Christmas shopping he was asked if he had:
- a Borders Reward card
- a Barnes and Nobles Club card
- a Staples Rewards card
- a Circuit City Rewards card (for a company that may be going out of business)
- a frequent customer card at the Hair Cuttery
- a Petsmart Club card
- AMC MovieWatcher card (why is OneWord?)
- Classic Cinemas card (no swiping - it's old school with stamps!)
- a Menards Big card (still regular size)
- a Best Buy RewardZone card
- a Dominick's Fresh Values card
- a Jewel card. Not sure - maybe this one is Fresh Values.
- a Speedway Frequent Gasser Card (May have misheard the name of that one.)
It seems the only places that didn't have a Super Awesome Adventure Smurftastic Card were Target, Wal-Mart and Goodwill. Yes, one of your gifts came from Goodwill. But which one??

Many of you probably know Matt's long, intense and storied hatred for these cards. Matt will go out of his way to avoid stores that have these stupid clubs. Admittedly, sometimes it's impossible to bypass the stores and nearly ridiculous not to get the "deals". At least the grocery stores are good about it, because they'll give you the "deal" if you say you forgot your card. They then feel obligated to tell you that you may not get all your greeting card points if you don't bring your card. God forbid.
("Deal" is in quotes because we all know they're just raising the price for the non-members and then lowering it for Those That Are Allowed A "Deal".)
And at Staples - where Matt shops way too much considering that store stinks - Matt figured out how to get a card without giving them a phone number. But they trick you by mailing your rebate, so you have to give your address. Serenity now!

Matt's been fighting this losing battle for 10+ years now. He knows when he's beaten, even if he doesn't surrender.

Now he realizes a new madness has taken over.
Account passwords.
Complaint One: Many of them are not passwords, because you're only given a number pad to punch them in. Semantics, right?
Complaint Two: Each site/card/dresser drawer warns you to use a unique password for each site/account/dresser drawer so that no one will ever be able to decode your secret password/passnumber/passgas. Fair enough, but how are we ever supposed to remember all these passwords? It's too much.

Right now, Matt has passwords for: his personal cell phone, his work cell phone, his work land line, his work email account, his personal email account, his email account that he gives out to Super Awesome Save Clubs Cards that only want to send him junk mail, his work computer log-in, his work software program log-in (different passwords for some reason), his credit card online account, his ebay account, his Illini tickets account, his stubhub account, his PayPal account, his cash station card, his debit card, his Amazon password, a CBSSportsline account (NCAA tournament brackets only), two blogspot accounts, a running blog password, a cell phone online bill pay password, an online banking password and an online bank account password. At least.

To remember all these passwords, Matt has to use combinations of: his address, his parent's address, his phone number, his parent's phone number, his college address (32 Chalmers!), his address in LaSalle, Carton Fisk's number with the White Sox, his birthday, his wife's name and the name of random baseball players.

Thankfully, his car and the front door to the house still use just a key. Otherwise, he'd be outside forever.