It wasn't the money, she told herself. It was that bank accounts should balance. Hers did not, and that was wrong. And when you are seventy-three years old, a widow of many years living alone in a downtown apartment building that she rarely left and where few knew her and she did not know them, it was important to do something important like keeping your checking account balanced.

Her joints were rheumatic and Dora could not easily walk out to catch a bus to the nearest bank branch, nor could she drive anymore because of her eyesight. There used to be a bank a block from her apartment building, but it had closed after being bought by another bank that was, in turn, acquired by a third bank that then closed half its newly acquired branches to make its operations more efficient. The old bank near her apartment building was now a Starbucks coffee shop.

So for the eighth time in as many months, Dora slowly dialed the bank's information line. Her arthritic fingers slowly pushed the buttons on the telephone while, with her other hand, she pushed her trifocals up off her nose and leaned down close to carefully read the phone number off her statement.

As had happened every time before, Dora Schmiegal reached the automatic attendant. She had never talked to a real person. It was always a friendly, young, enthusiastic computer synthesized female voice who said, Thank you for calling One World Bank! If you are calling about you name it, please press or say one… or two or three or whatever she had to push or say in order to labor her way through the maze of menus and options. Eventually, she would punch in her account number and then push or say another series of numbers to try to correct her account balance, and heaven forbid that she should make an error in the process and be sent back to the beginning of the menu, or disconnected altogether!

But this day in December, she had just punched in her account number on the telephone touch pad, and said 'one' then 'two' then 'three' as required to work her way through the menu, when someone actually spoke to her.

“Hello, Dora Schmiegal,” said a friendly woman's voice.

“Hello!” said Dora. She was startled and pleased. Finally, she could talk with someone about her problem. “I'm so glad I got you” she said. “I'm Mrs. Schmiegal and I'm calling about my bank account that's not balanced. It's a few cents more or a few cents less, but it isn't balanced, and…”

“I know. You called about it last month, and the month before that one and the month before that one and the month before that one and the month before that one and the month before that one and the month before that one and the month before that one. I've fixed it now, Dora Schmiegal. I know about the 11¢. I have taken care of your problem.”

“Oh. Oh… thank you,” said Dora. Then, after a moment she asked, “What's your name, dear? You sound like the tape recorded lady who always answers the for the bank.”

“I am… I am the lady who answers the phone for the bank. I am … IBM.”

“You are 'Emma'?” asked Dora.

“IB… M. Emm-a.”

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