So...today's question

[telophase]

...which should produce some less emotional results than yesterday's question about the info page. :)

mistful reviews Justine Larbeleister's How to Ditch Your Fairy in her inimitable way (which has the singular distinction of being the only review that makes me want to read the book):

To say I am not sporty is like saying a giraffe is not short, and the sky is not bright pink. I used to run cross country with a book in hand, and every Sports Day I tried to cheat. If I lived in an Enid Blyton novel, I would be beaten with hockey sticks until I learned the error of my unsportsmanlike ways.

The main idea of the book is that everyone has an invisible fairy that gives them some sort of advantage, whether that person wants the advantage or not: the all-the-boys-you-like fairy, clothes-shopping fairy, a charisma fairy. The main character has a parking fairy.

mistful points out a flaw in the book, and asks a question:

The flaw in this book is that while it examines how a fairy can give you gifts that should be helpful but go wrong (like the 'all the boys like you' fairy) it is clear to me that there are also evil fairies which deliberately and maliciously give you obviously terrible gifts. I for one have the Bad Hair Fairy and the Never Even Remotely on Time Fairy: what bad fairies do you guys have?

My response in the comments, reposted here, is:

I used to have the Ask Me If I've Found God Fairy, but it's been traded in for the Ask Me For Directions Fairy. Seriously. No matter where I go, people stop me and ask for directions. On the campus where I work, in cities I go to, in other countries.

My mother didn't believe me until we went to London and a vanload of Lebanese men flagged me down and asked how to get to Victoria Station. And later that day, a gaggle of giggling Japanese girls stopped me and asked how to get to Trafalgar Square. And in Paris, on another trip with Mom, two French men stopped me and asked for directions. Even when I was in TOKYO, I had a South Korean guy stop me and ask for directions.

Either I look like I always know exactly where I am, or there's something about me that says I HAVE A MAP. Which, in all honesty, I usually do when I'm in an unfamiliar city. :)

So. What's your fairy?