"At your earliest convenience"

The first impulse was not to return the call. From a bank? From a bank nowhere near here? The first thought was that it was yet another attempt to sell some non-insured financial product. But it turned out that delaying to subtract to get the running balance in the checkbook register and then later misreading a handwritten 5 for a 3 resulted in an overdraft. A small one, under ten dollars. Yes; a potential bounced check! It is the end of the month, after all. The initial fear was that there had been identity theft or an unauthorized withdrawal from the account. The patient bank employee kindly read the number and amount of every check that cleared for the entire month of January. Bad handwriting not bad intentions was the cause of the problem. Resolution: tidy up that handwriting!