I don’t have a Parking Fairy, truly wish I did, but alas… I do not. I do know plenty of people who do seem to have a Parking Fairy, and I am constantly jealous of these blessed people. Mr K has a Parking Fairy – always gets that perfect park right out front at a packed event, finds money in the street to buy lunch on a day he forgets his wallet, stumbles onto the perfect widget for any given purpose with ease! I am firmly of the belief that the Parking Fairy can be a fickle bitch, but her fondness for Keith was totally working in my favour this trip, so I am totally not complaining!
15 Reasons to Travel With Mr K and His Parking Fairy
- Mr K always got the cabs whenever he needed one in New Orleans. The town would be packed and people going in every direction and he always seemed to turn the right corner and flag down a cab immediately.
- When it came to finding seats to watch the Mardi Gras parades, Mr K would choose a spot and it would turn out to be the best spots for seeing all the toasts and highlights.
- Wandering around Bourbon Street on Fat Tuesday, and the need to pee gets the better of you… I’d be wandering around for half an hour looking for a place, but Mr K walks straight into what turns out to be the best little bar with great food and great music and we end up there for an hour!
- Mr K decides that we should go to the Kennedy Space Centre and we get there and the place is half empty! No queues, no waiting, no problems… the day before however, was a madhouse.
- Mr K scores a free car upgrade for our drive from New Orleans to Orlando in Florida – bye bye crappy Ford Focus, hello fancy town car.
- Things go a little awry and we find ourselves running late to check in for our flight in Orlando… I get a bit panicky, but Mr K chats to the check in staff and suddenly they are putting us in expedited queues and throwing our luggage in without charging us!
- Things like this never happen to me – somehow Mr K scores a spare seat between the two of us from Orlando to Washington, giving us a heap more space and comfort for the flight.
- We get to Washington and find out that the Richard III run at the Folger Shakespeare has been extended. I enquire on the phone and get told that they are sold out. Mr K tries the box office and gets the last two seats in the house for our preferred night.
- We find ourselves standing around in the cold outside the National Archives freezing our tits off, waiting to go in… when out of nowhere a teacher from a Kentucky school group of high achievers who have a booking come up to Mr K and offer to let us tack onto their group and jump the 45 min queue!
- I have no idea how he does this – but he gets us another free car upgrade in New York, so instead of driving around in a Ford Focus, we are driving around in a VW Passat with a leather interior and all the bells and whistles (for ‘bells and whistles’ read: seat warmers, which were very much appreciated up there!).
- We decide to go to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts on a rainy Sunday and it seems half of Boston figure that was a good way to spend the day too. All the on street parking is taken, the parking garage is $22 for the first three hours and we go ‘eek!’. Mr K decides to do one lap and ‘lo and behold, finds *the* closest park available and it was free.
- Go to check in at the Bellagio for the week, and Mr K has a chat with the reception staff resulting in a free room upgrade… from a resort room to a Spa Tower fountain and strip view room! Awesome.
- For the hat trick, Mr K goes to pick up our third hire car in Las Vegas and, you guessed it, somehow manages to get us another free car upgrade from a cheap compact to a Chevrolet Impala (how does he do it!)
- Then in a stunning use of the omnipresent Parking Fairy, Mr K finds a hat. Now this one needs a bit of explaining. When we were in New Orleans, he found a nice New Orleans Saints Hat that he liked in a hat shop however, it’s not in his size. Not to worry though, they have them everywhere in a chain called Lids, which are in Washington, New York, Boston, and Las Vegas and well everywhere really… but not a single one of the probably 10-12 Lids stores we try has the ‘right hat’. As we are getting ready to leave Vegas, I spy a small little sports store at the airport terminal and suggest he have a poke around to kill some time while we are waiting for our flight. Wouldn’t you know it, after weeks of looking the first racks Mr K walks over to have the hat he wants and in his size. Unbelievable.
- And just to put the icing on the cake, he managed to score us four seats to ourselves on the flight on the way home so I got to lay down and try and sleep!
The moral of the story is… if you have a Parking Fairy of your own, make sure you get good use of her, and if you don’t – always travel with someone who does have one!