The Case of the Taxed Taxidermist

It was a bad combination. My hands slippery from too much hair gel. My hairdryer roaring on high. My pet goldfish swimming without a care in the word in his bowl at my feet.

Needless to say, Goldie is now floating belly up.

I couldn’t just flush him down the drain—he meant too much to me. Sending him to a swirling afterlife just didn’t seem right. So I went to Tilly’s Taxidermy to have the little guy stuffed.

Tilly was a mouse of a woman: 5 foot nothing, smocked in grey and hiding behind a curtain of black bangs. I showed her the inanimate remains of my precious Goldie, presented delicately in a heavy-duty Ziploc bag filled with crushed ice.

“You want me to stuff a dead goldfish?”

“If I knew the dead part would bother you, I would have brought him in alive. Is there going to be a problem or should I take him to Tex’s Taxidermy & Sausage Emporium down the road?”

“Hold your britches, Mr…?”

“Insura. Ace Insura.”

Her eyes lit up, or else she was goosed by the stuffed raccoon on the table behind her.

“Are you that fella who knows all about insurance?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Well, I’ll stuff your little pocket pet if you can help me with an insurance conundrum. I have joint custody of my son, who’s away at college. Someone broke into his dorm room and stole $1,500 worth of computer equipment. My no-good scumbag of a lying ex-husband turned in the theft loss to his carrier, which now wants to coordinate the claim with each of our homeowners’ policies.”

“That sounds reasonable. Go on.”

“Reasonable? We share the deduction for the child every other year. During the year of the loss, my son was a deduction for my ex. His policy has a $250 deductible, while mine has a $1,000 deductible. The claims person said that they will pay the $750, but after that will coordinate the balance as to what each of us has for a limit of personal property. Is there some coordination of benefits provision in the policy that would allow the carrier to do that? I reckon that since my rat-faced ex had the deduction,
his policy should take care of the entire claim. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a good thing you two are no longer married. As for your problem, there’s no reason to tax this question.”

Why was Ace pretending to be an accountant? For help solving this mystery and to check your solution against Ace’s, click here.

Jonathan Hermann (hermannism@gmail.com) is an IA contributing editor.