I don’t have a bank account because I don’t know my mother’s maiden name.

Poundstone’s line is a comic exaggeration about the bureaucratic “security questions” that gatekeep access to basic services. By claiming she can’t open a bank account because she doesn’t know her mother’s maiden name, she highlights how institutions treat personal trivia as proof of identity—often assuming stable family records and conventional upbringings. The joke also plays on the mismatch between the gravity of banking and the absurdity of relying on a single, easily forgotten (or unknowable) fact. Beneath the humor is a critique of impersonal systems that can exclude people whose lives don’t fit standard forms, and of the flimsy nature of such security measures.