Show and Tell Friday

Here is a picture of the former Bank of Pennsylvania on 5th St. in Reading, Pa. I worked here when I was about 19 years old. I have a story about working here that I have to share today.

One Friday afternoon, I was on my lunch hour and went downstairs to cash a check. I cannot remember why I had this check but it was my mom's money and I was cashing the check for her. It was for $30.00. I cashed the check in the lobby and went back to the employee elevator to go back up to the top floor where I worked. As I entered the elevator and had pushed the button for my floor, I heard a LOUD crash and felt the building shake and rumble. I couldn't figure out what the noise was but I didn't want to be riding the elevator up if there was a problem so I hit the OPEN DOOR button while it was still closing. This allowed me to exit the elevator. I walked into the lobby and saw the strangest thing ever.

Now the lobby of the bank was huge and the front of the lobby, as you can see from the picture, was just plate after plate of glass. There was a car, sitting in the middle of the lobby. The 3 front windows were broken and there was glass continuing to fall onto the car. Although the crashing of the glass sounded loud, it was eerily quiet. No one was moving or talking. Everyone just stood there watching in, what seemed like, slow motion.

Suddenly a man exited the car and walked over to the teller line and began to yell, "This is a stick-up! Give me your money!" We all were frozen in confusion at this point. The teller didn't move until he yelled again, "I am serious! This is a stick-up!" She frantically emptied the cash drawer onto the counter. Packets after packets of money. The fear in her face was horrible to behold.

All I could think about was that I had $30.00 cash in my purse and it was my MOM'S! I quietly walked over to one of the secretary's desks and stashed my purse slowly under her desk so I couldn't be robbed. I then moved to the side. I knew I was unable to exit but I also knew there were rooms that we could run to.

The man grabbed some packets of money off the counter. He turned around and yelled something that I don't remember and then he threw the money up into the air. The cash flew all around. It drifted down slowly. It was raining bills all around the lobby. This action seemed to spur everyone back to motion. The branch secretary began to hit the security camera buttons over and over, taking shot after shot of the action happening. Another secretary was on the phone to the police. In the meantime, the police began to arrive, one a mounted policeman. He literally rode his horse through the broken plate glass window.

By now, we realized there was another person in the car. It was a lady and she was holding an infant! The police handcuffed the man right away. The branch manager and a secretary got the lady out of the car. I'll never forget their compassion and they checked to make sure she was not injured, nor her baby. They were very concerned for her and wanted to get her out of the car as glass kept falling from the windows and they feared it might injure her, shattering the windshield of the car even more.

The police would not let anyone leave the lobby, making all witnesses stay until they got a statement. They began with me and then sent me back up to my floor via the elevator. I stopped to get my purse. It was my job to look up his name. I had access to bank customer's files. He claimed he was angry because the bank was going to reposses his car so he was "delivering it" to us.

As I entered my floor, I ran to my computer and began telling the story of what happened while entering his name. Everyone thought I was teasing or mistaken until they realized I had just lived through it. I entered his name. Nothing. I called back downstairs. I asked for various spellings, alias, anything else? Nope. Just a name. But I had nothing!

I can't tell you why, but it occured to me that maybe he was confused. (Gee, driving a car THROUGH a front lobby of a bank might be a clue that someone is not quite all there?!) I called a friend at another bank and asked her to run his name through her computer. Bingo! He had an account there. A delinquent account. An auto loan that was so late, they were flagging the account for repossesion.

I called downstairs to let them know. They didn't believe me at first until I gave them the account number and told them to call for themselves.

Yes, folks, he had the WRONG BANK!