Three lines of customers at the bank’s drive-in windows are at a standstill. Cars near the front of the line are honking. One driver yells at the lady in the red Honda.

That’s where the problem is. The lady in the Honda at the front of the line. She sends a check with a deposit slip through the tube. A teller sees a Post-it note stuck to the front of the check.

Somebody near the end of the line hears the commotion and makes a 911 call to report a "disturbance" at the bank. Moments later two police cars pull up. One car blocks the exit lanes. A uniformed officer from the second car enters the bank.

Meanwhile, all the tellers are reading the note, pointing at the red Honda, and laughing. "We’ve had a rough day," says a teller on the intercom, "tell us about the sticky note on your check."

Soon, the cop inside is laughing along with the tellers. He is also reading the sticky note. By now, the lady in the Honda is very embarrassed.

With some urging, she explains the note. Tellers pipe the lady’s voice through the system for all to hear:

"I’m a music teacher. Last week a check from one of my students got disintegrated in my washing machine," she says. "I forgot and left it in my jeans. I called my student’s father, told him what I did, and he was very understanding.

"Today, he gave me another check to cover the one that got destroyed in the wash," she says. "But he put that little sticky note on the front of the check, and I forgot to peel it off before I put it in the bank’s tube."

The teller reads the note aloud, but it’s not easy to control her giggling: "Proper check care-wash on gentle cycle-tumble dry-may shrink." The teller fights to keep control. "Aren’t you glad you didn’t use Bounce in your laundry?"