I too avoid valet parking. But sometimes I just can’t escape it, like last night when my wife and I went downtown (LA) for dinner where there was no parking anywhere except for valet parking in front of the restaurant, or the time I checked into a downtown hotel for the day to go to catch a tour bus for the Rose Bowl game (I’m a Penn State alumni) where I had to valet park.

I’ve learned to lock them out of the trunk and glove box as we discussed, check the mileage as I leave the car, and look it over very carefully in their presence before I drive off. So far I’ve been lucky.

Of course that’s like the optimist who fell off a 100 story building who could be heard on the way down, “so far so good.”