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Everybody has a horror story about the high-handed operations of banks. Like the unconscionable "float," that money-milking delay in clearing checks. Like the fish-eye treatment that rank-and-file depositors get whenever they try to withdraw their own money.

Everybody knows that Billy Sol Estes or Carlo Ponzi or William Alderdice could walk into a bank and borrow $26 million, using a fast-food gift certificate worth five bucks as collateral. Everybody also knows that an ordinary honest citizen cannot obtain a $100 loan without putting up the house and first-born as a guarantee of repayment.

I've told all those stories myself. After an experience last week, however, I view the usurers in a kinder light. They aren't crass and callous because they are mean people. They are crass and callous because they have a serious problem.

Banks don't have any money.

You don't believe that? I didn't, either, until I withdrew my life savings from the company credit union.

Following customary procedure, I was given a check. I took it to the full- scale, long-windowed, thick-rugged banking establishment where, on a couple of previous occasions, I had cashed such checks.

Having been through it all before, I knew that somebody in authority would have to approvee the transaction. So I stopped at the information desk and said, "Do you have a big shot who can give me the traditional fish-eye, search my check for signs of foul play, ask for proof of federal security clearance, disappear for 20 minutes, then come back beaming with the news that I am entitled to the money that I spent a year accumulating?"

I was in luck. The big shot was a very tall, pleasant lady who hadn't been in the business long enough to perfect a what-are-you-trying-to-pull look. She asked for my driver's license, then went to find an even bigger shot to OK her OK.

She couldn't find one. She suggested I come back later. I suggested that would be silly. She left again and found a big-enough shot.

To make an interminable story merely windy, the big-enough shot asked if I had an account there. I didn't. So she asked for two pieces of identification. I produced a credit card. Then she paled. The check was not written on her bank. The credit union had switched shylocks on me. No deal, the big-enough shot said, politely but firmly.

I went looking for the right bank. It was three blocks away, in a structure about half the size of a Taco Viva. There was room for only one big shot. She couldn't have been nicer.

"We'd be happy to cash your check," she said, "but we don't have that much money on hand." Scout's honor.

We are not talking seven figures here. Or six. Or even five. We're talking modest four figures. The lady said she could give me the address of a bigger, better-heeled branch that did keep cash around just in case a robber showed up with a snotty note. I told her I'd stop on the way home at the fancy building on Sheridan Street in Hollywood.

Pulling into the Hollywood branch's vast parking lot I knew my troubles were over. This was a real financial institution. Several floors. A time and temperature clock out front. Ed McMahon's initials scratched on the sidewalk.

Almost immediately a big shot asked if she could help. I showed her the check. "Oh my," she said. "If you want that much you have to call 24 hours in advance. We have to know how much money to order for the next day."

She was serious. The bank orders money just like Joe Robbie orders concession supplies before a football game. Sellout crowd? Order tons of ugly little shriveled up hot dogs. Small crowd? Cut back the order for watery soft drinks.

Remember, we are not discussing a check for a staggering sum. We're talking about Donald Trump's lunch money. And the big shot said she didn't have it.

I sulked. She said she'd see what she could do, then disappeared. She came back beaming.

"The head teller says we have enough cash to give you the money that you have scrimped and saved and is rightfully yours."

Who said banks have no heart?

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