An Apology to the Drive Thru Bank Teller I Robbed Accidentally

By Tracie Adams

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Listen to a reading of this story by the author:

I turned the steering wheel with sweaty palms as I exited the bank parking lot. My heart, an inmate pounding on bars, thumped against my rib cage. I drove straight home to my studio apartment, conscious of my speed so I wouldn’t get pulled over. My mind raced with ideas of how I would spend all that money.

The phone rang an hour later. My heart was still beating twice its normal pace, and my mouth was dry with fear. Perched on the side of my bed, I was running my hands through the thick stack of bills, waving it under my nose, savoring the smell.

“I made a mistake,” your voice trembled as you explained that you were a trainee, first day on the job. “I’m really sorry for the mixup.” I was only half listening while you explained how you had accidentally looked at the check number on my paycheck instead of the amount.

I was thinking about my parents. They would be so disappointed in me. Hell, I was disappointed in me.

Your frantic tone rattled my nerves. Your desperation buzzed through the line like electricity as you asked me to please return the overage amount of one thousand twenty-four dollars and sixteen cents to the bank before the close of business.

I tuned back in when I heard you say, “They’ll take it out of my paycheck. I could lose my job.”

It’s been forty years, but I’ll never forget the way your words came out all vibrato, your vocal cords quivering. I will never stop being sorry for that.

I want you to know it’s not that I didn’t care. I just cared about myself more. I could have used the stolen money to buy more ramen noodles and off-brand ketchup to stock my cabinets. That’s what a starving college student should do. But what I actually bought was a new pair of shoes, a pair of sensible black flats that were comfortable to walk in. Mine were falling off as I walked across campus to class. Turns out, when you lose a large amount of weight very quickly, even your feet shrink. Snorting cocaine for six months had triggered Bulimia to morph into Anorexia. I went from bingeing potato chips to snorting cocaine, dropping acid, and smoking crack.

The new shoes cost less than twenty dollars. The rest of the money went up my nose or in my eyes. A respectable person like you probably knows nothing about dropping acid in your eyes to have the trip of a lifetime. You probably never woke up in a boat parked on a trailer in a deserted parking lot after a Grateful Dead concert. You probably look your parents in the eye.

“You must have me confused with someone else.” My voice was so steady that I almost convinced myself I was telling you the truth.

You probably thought you were dealing with a hardened criminal, a repeat offender with no conscience, a sociopath with no empathy for her victims.

Sometimes I think about the way you said goodbye to me at the end of that phone call. I heard the way you gave up on me, the lost girl. You were right, I was on the edge of destruction. And I decided to jump.

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Tracie Adams, a 2025 Pushcart nominee, writes from her farm in rural Virginia where she spends a ridiculous amount of time with two writing buddies who look a lot like dachshunds. Her work is featured in BULL, Does It Have Pockets, Cleaver Magazine, Sky Island, Raw Lit, and others. Read her work at www.tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on Twitter @1funnyfarmAdams.