The Case of the Confounded Coach

A cold December wind ripped through my trench coat, making my knees bang together louder than a 5 year old with a drum kit. Still, I grasped the icy putter calmly and stared down the flag billowing at the end of the pole. With one smooth stroke, I sent the ball under the windmill, careening off the wooden slat and into the hole.

I don’t like to brag, but it’s hard to talk about my miniature golf skills without bragging. Some people call me the Tiger Woods of the mini-links, even though Nike frowns upon such comparisons.

I enjoyed the solitude of playing mini-golf in the middle of December, when I had the whole course to myself. So my heart sank like an inflatable raft bought at the dollar store when Coach Nells, my old high school gym teacher, walked up to the first hole.

Like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar dancing with Dr. Ruth, the coach and I didn’t see eye to eye. He used to embarrass me in front of Betty Jo Chesterly by making me do 20 push-ups when he knew I couldn’t finish more than three, especially after a sloppy joe lunch.

But now I was a successful insurance investigator, and he could not intimidate me any longer.

“Hi coach! Remember me?” “Insura? Is that you? Drop and give me 20!”

I quickly fell to my knees, one hand on the plastic greens and the other in my back pocket. “Push-ups or bucks?”

“Both!”

“Wait, I’m not your student anymore! I’m a professional insurance man, and I demand some respect!”

Coach eyed his putter suspiciously as if wondering how many strokes it would take to putt my head across a football field.

“Insurance, eh? Answer me this. I got this letter from the school board stating I have to drive my team on the school’s mini-bus to competitions. The letter says I’m covered by the school and by my personal auto policy, but that sounds as fishy to me as fast food sushi. What do you think?”

“The PAP provides very broad liability coverage while operating virtually any auto for personal reasons,” I said. “Whether you have liability coverage could depend on whether the ‘mini-bus’ is a ‘van.’ But before we open up that can of worms, what kind of policy are you running with these days?”

“I have the 1994 version of the ISO PAP policy. So, pencil neck, do I have any coverage?”

“Coach, I’m not just saying this because of your gray hair, but time is not on your side.”

Why was Ace time traveling? 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.