So I freaked for a moment last night when, on my way home after work, I stopped to get gas. I'm sitting in my car, alternatively looking out at the road in front of me and in my mirrors at the three people behind me drinking 40s and sitting on the curb outside the Exxon On The Go shop while salsa music blares from the speakers of a pimped-out white Accord or Acura or something.

Then the attendant leans in the window, my bank debit card in his hand and says, "It's declined."

My heart skipped a few beats, then proceeded to make up for them by beating twice as fast. I hid my panic, pulled out a credit card (which I later realized was the one for which my parents pay the bill, a card given to me years ago for those "emergencies"), and hoped that the machine wouldn't be able to read that one, thereby placing the blame on the machine. But it worked fine.

This has happened before. I use my debit card so much, sometimes it takes several swipes to get the machine to read the worn-out magnetic strip. This one expires next month, so I'll be getting a new one anyway, and I chalked it up to the card's age as well. But still, I worried that something had happened. I'm very careful with my debit card. I never use it for online purposes; I'll rarely even give the number out over the phone. I try only to use it when I am there, handing the teller the card, watching it get swiped, and having it handed right back to me. I thought back to the last time I'd used it -- at the supermarket, where I swiped it myself, entered my PIN, and took my receipt.

So I didn't really think that my number had been stolen and my checking account depleted, but still, it was hard to keep my mind from look down the side paths, if not from all-out wandering.

Then I read about the warning issued to the banks in the Northeast and I wonder if maybe something smaller and quieter than a suicide attack had happened. Maybe they'd started small, wiping out a few accounts of various random people from Maine to D.C. Maybe I was one of them, and I'd go downstairs, check my balance on the ATM in our cafeteria, and find nothing but zeros. Maybe I'd get to call the FBI and report it, and they'd question me, and I'd get out of working for a few days for some reason (lame, isn't it?) and then, because there was nothing I could do, my bank, or the government, or some kind-hearted philanthropist would give me $20,000 to start fresh and get me back on my feet.

But everything was fine. My balance was intact and, while not much, ws about where I expected it to be.

It was certianly enough for a tank of gas.