Mrs. Warner Goes to the Bank

It could have been the cape. It could have been the long johns. It was probably the mask.

What was odd was the sticker on the automatic glass door when you walked into the bank. It had the universal symbol for 'no,' and then there were several pictures beneath, like sunglasses, band-aids (applied to the face), and masks. The bank left nothing to chance. There was a picture of the mask the Lone Ranger wore, and then there were a variety of Halloween masks featured, along with the rubber masks that were usually reserved for presidents' faces. Ronald Reagan was featured on the bank's door.

The door itself was polished daily. Each morning when the bank opened, the glass was pristine. A person would be hard-pressed to find even a smudge or handprint or accumulation of dust or pollen (in the Spring, the yellow sheen of pollen took pride of place on many downtown businesses' doors). Each time the sides of the sticker with the pictures began to wear away or curl, some conscientious bank employee replaced it. The idea that the bank had a stash of the stickers demonstrated the bank's commitment to customers' having unadorned faces as well as the past experience of various branches' previously being robbed by individuals wearing band-aids, masks, and/or sunglasses.

I had sunglasses in my purse. Mint condition double-dark Vuarnet sunglasses from the 1980's. My eyes are a very light green, and they are extremely light sensitive on sunny or even partly sunny days. That said, when I wore sunglasses indoors, the double-dark lenses made it impossible for me to see as clearly as I'd need to see if I wanted to rob a bank. Added to that, in my small town, everyone knew me. Sunglasses and band-aid would be poor appliances for me. Each time I went to the bank, though, I thought it would be a lot of fun to rob the bank. I never had these thoughts at any other time—only on those occasions I went inside the bank.

But here I was, standing in the bank lobby between the maze the employees created with velvet ropes. And I couldn't stop thinking of robbing the bank. I could always ask to take more money out of the bank than what I currently had in the bank. I knew how that would go, though. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Warner. You only have $24,484. 83 in your account. You're $975,515.17 short."

I wanted to be in one of those movie scenes where I was in the vault, and there were piles of cash, banded bundles of $100,000 each, sitting on a cart or something, and magically, I had a gym bag to stuff all the money I could reasonably carry. I pictured myself stuffing the thing so full I wouldn't be able to zip the bag closed. I envisioned dumping the money on my bed, taking a few bundles, holding them close to my nose to get a good whiff of the new paper and tang of the fresh ink. And to get a fully immersive experience with the money, I'd fan one of the bundles, allowing the moving air to ruffle my wispy bangs.

Dreams were dreams, though, and I was under no illusions that I could knock off a bank. I had physical limitations, specifically the following: I am five feet tall, weigh 102 pounds, and am 84 years old. I don't do weight training, and in fact, didn't do weight training when I was younger, and now I have osteoporosis. If I ever had the opportunity to rob the bank, I felt confident that I could handle ten bundles. Again, the only times I ever thought of robbing the bank were the days when I paid attention to the stickers on the bank's doors. It's one of those things. No one ever thinks about pink elephants until someone says, "Don't think about pink elephants."

I never think of taking contraband on an airplane, and I never think of violence or subversive behavior in an airport, that is, until I'm in the airport. It's all I think about. And make no bones about it. I have no desire to create mayhem or havoc, but it's those darn pink elephants.

However, I thought about robbing the bank pretty much every time I walked through the doors and saw those stickers.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one who felt a personal challenge posed by the bank and its warnings on this particular day.

It was a beautiful spring day. I remember the spring time because I had a wadded up tissue stuffed into the sleeve of my blouse. My allergies were flaring, and it's so much more convenient to have a tissue handily stashed than to dig around in my handbag. There was a young mother in line behind me. She had a very large baby on her hip. The baby was fussy, and the mother was thrown off her game when her cell phone began to buzz. She muttered, and the baby reached for my hair, grabbing a handful. The mother dropped her phone. I tried to turn around to see if I could help, but the baby's hand was firmly attached to me, and the mother was attached to the baby. We began to make an awkward circle, and the mother tried to jiggle the baby loose from me, which turned into the baby screaming into my ear. The other bank patrons directed their attention to us, and no one made any effort to help with my hair, now being held tightly in the baby's claw-like grip, the young mother, or the cell phone that had slid away from the young mother. No one wanted any part of separating the mother and child, and the child wanted no part of being separated from my head.

While attention was riveted on the wrestling match between the baby and my hair, no one saw the man in the bright green long johns enter the bank lobby. He wore a cape that had to have come from Party City. It was the yellow of the daffodils blooming in the neatly tended flower beds on the sidewalk in front of the bank. And the man wore a mask that could have been Teddy Roosevelt or maybe Rodney Dangerfield. It was hard to tell. Whoever the character was, he had a fleshy face and neck. In his ridiculous getup, the man, likely colorblind, could have only had one thing on his mind. He was here to rob the bank. He had a shotgun strapped to his back, marring the effect of the cape, and he also had a chainsaw. It wasn't turned on. Again, all eyes were on the baby, the young mother, and me.

The robber bellowed, and it was a bellow, because sound always seemed to reverberate in the bank's lobby. "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. Everyone take a seat. Tellers, please join your customers on the lobby floor."

The bellowing stopped the baby's crying, and my hair was finally let loose. We all took seats on the cold travertine floor.

"Please put your phones on the floor, and kick them away." More bellowing. He was now holding the shotgun and fanning it across the small group of us who were now sitting in between the velvet ropes.

I waved my hand to draw the robber's attention. "Young man, I'm 84 years old. Could I sit on one of the sofas?" I was going to get a pressure ulcer sitting on the hard tile.

He looked me square in the eyes. At least, I think he did. It was hard to tell with the mask. He indicated I could sit on the sofa by pointing the shotgun toward where he wanted me to sit.

The baby began wailing. The baby wanted to crawl around on the floor, and the gunman's attention turned toward the young mother. "Can't you control that kid?"

"I think she likes the old lady." The young mother pointed at me, and sure enough, the giant baby was holding her arms out toward me and actively trying to escape the confines of her mother.

The gunman looked at me again. "Lady, can you go get that kid?"

I wasn't sure I could carry the giant baby. It had to be at least 25 pounds. "I don't know. She's a very big baby. Can she just crawl or walk to me?" I looked at the mother. She nodded and let the baby loose. I could put the baby on my lap or something.

While the baby crawled to me, the robber zeroed in on one of the tellers. "You. Do you have a key to the vault? Do you have the security code to open it?" The teller shook her head.

"Okay, people. One of you has to be able to open the vault. Who's it going to be?" The tellers all looked at each other, and there was the obvious odor of flop sweat. The gunman swung the shotgun back onto his back and pulled the string on the chainsaw. It whirred to life in a deafening fashion. I noticed the motor housing was the same yellow as the gunman's cape. Could the color coordination have been by design, I wondered.

The baby, now sitting on my lap, clapped and laughed. I laughed, too. Who knew that a chainsaw could be so entertaining to a toddler? Some of the people on the floor gave nervous smiles. The tellers didn't smile. One raised her hand.

The gunman turned off the chainsaw, waving it toward the teller, with the unspoken instruction that she was to take him to the vault. He turned to all of us. "Everyone, get in single file and follow the teller. If you all follow directions, no one will get hurt."

I waved my hand again toward the robber and didn't move from where I was seated.

"What now, Grandma?"

"I can't carry the baby. She's too big."

He rubbed at the mask's forehead. "Jesus, lady. You should take better care of yourself. It's a freaking baby."

"It's a freaking huge baby."

The robber pointed the chainsaw at the baby's mother. "Go get your kid, and get in line." She scrambled over to me, and the baby started screaming when the mother retrieved her.

We all lined up, and I made sure to stand behind mother and child—my head was still sore from where the baby had grabbed me earlier. I was an old dog, but I could still learn new tricks.

We followed the teller, and the robber followed us to the vault. The teller opened the vault, and I don't know what I was expecting. Well, that's not true. I had an idea of what I expected. It should have been some kind of grand reveal like when the arc was opened in "Raiders of the Lost Arc," or maybe a big pile of gold bars or scads of cash, neatly stacked and banded, like in my dream bank robbery; but it was nothing like that. We were in a small town. This vault housed a bunch of safety deposit boxes. I don't know what the robber had in mind, but if this had been my operation, I would have scrapped the whole thing. And this is why I would have made a very poor bank robber.

I heard the chainsaw rev up, and then the robber went to town on one side of the vault where the larger boxes were located. Several doors popped open at once. The robber pulled off his cape, which was actually a laundry bag. I marveled at his industriousness. He dumped the contents of five or six boxes into the bag, knotted it, and threw it over his shoulder.

"Grandma, come here." Again, the bellowing. He handed me the chainsaw. It was not as heavy as the baby. "Go get back in line. Don't get any funny ideas."

The chainsaw was unwieldy, though, and the part he handed me was slippery from sweat. I had trouble gripping it, and dropped it on the robber's foot. The blade sliced through his shoe, and blood began to spurt across the floor of the vault. The baby clapped and laughed. I did a little hop to get out of the way of the blood spray. The robber swore at me before hobbling out of the vault and closing the rest of us inside.

We waited a minute or so before someone commenced with the laughter of hysteria.

"How do we get out of here?" someone asked.

One of the young ladies who had been toward the front of the line raised her wrist, displaying a smart watch. "I already called 9-1-1 before we landed here in the vault and left the line open. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get a cell signal."

While the Sheriff's Department was deployed to get us out of the vault, the city policy arrested the robber. He was easy to catch since he left a trail of blood and was slowed down by three severed toes.

The next day, all of us from the thwarted robbery, were requested to visit the bank for a luncheon in a conference room. The bank's president, a man with a red, fleshy face, not unlike the robber's mask, asked how he could thank me for my bravery. All of us in the vault that bright spring day knew it wasn't bravery. It was poor preparation for old age on my part. "I don't suppose you have some extra cash you'd like to give me." I gave a self-deprecating laugh.

He clapped me on the back, nearly knocking me over. "How would you like free checking for life?"

"Well, I don't know about that. I probably only have a few more years in me." I gave him a pretty good slug in the arm, drawing away slightly to give him a long look before landing on what exactly I wanted from the bank. "I think I'd like to have a set of those stickers you have on the front door. You know, as a keepsake."