The Case of the Vegas Valet

I stared at the snapper and the snapper stared back. I raised my knife and the snapper’s beady black eyes followed its stainless steal ascent. Unable to follow through, I lowered the knife and quietly drank my iced tea, hoping no one at the table noticed my sudden loss of appetite.

Dinner at my sister’s house was always a culinary adventure. Each time she’d prepare another experiment. Recent dinners had included swallow’s nest soup and Rocky Mountain oysters, which it turns out were not actually oysters! Tonight’s main course was fish—roasted, whole snapper to be exact—prepared in a way that would make a guillotine operator’s finger twitch…with head still attached.

Call me old-fashioned, but I preferred to dine on food that no longer resembled its breath-taking origins. I preferred to eat hamburgers, not cows. McNuggets, not chicken. I even preferred ketchup over tomatoes.

As I searched for an indiscrete way to feed my snapper to the family cat, my nephew Lloyd strutted into the room, bobbing his head to music streaming though his earphones.

“Hey uncle dude,” he said, displaying the finer points of his college education. “Guess what?”

I usually did not interact with Lloyd, especially after the foul pull my-finger debacle of 2004, but time not only heals all wounds, it also erases all odors.

“What, Lloyd,” I responded.

“I’m going to Vegas. Vegas, baby! I’ve rented a super-sweet, cherry-red convertible.

And I’m driving all the way with the top down.”

Now I wouldn’t be Ace Insura if I didn’t ask, “Are you going to get the collision damage waiver from the rental company?”

“Don’t need it, bro. My PAP has me covered.”

“You’re right. In general, the ISO PAP extends coverage to a rental car, but what if a valet parks it?” He stopped bobbing his head just long enough for his long blonde hair to fall into his face, covering the confused expression.

“Why would I, like, let a valley girl drive the car?”

“Not valley—valet. In Vegas, you’re going to pull up to some swanky hotels, where some swanky valets will drive your convertible through the parking garage. What if they damage the car while they’re parking it? You know, there’s no liability coverage for permissive drivers except for ‘your covered auto.’”

Like an ending to an M. Night Shyamalan movie, he didn’t see that coming.

“What can I do, uncle? I need this vay-kay in a bad way.”

“Don’t blow a fuse, Lloyd,” I said, “I’ll walk you through the solution.”

Where would Ace take the lad?

For help solving this mystery and to check your solution against Ace’s, click here.

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