The fish flies through the air and into a mouse-hole across the room...

The subject line above is a paraphrase from the puzzle about getting a Babel Fish out of the dispenser in the old Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy computer game. I reckon many of you reading this beat your head against this puzzle and know how frustrating it was. I faced a similar situation with my bank regarding attempting to close a checking account.

( Cut in case you don't want to hear about it )

So eventually I got the account closed, but it took a week longer than it should have done. So much for online banking saving time!