Parking spaces shaken, not stirred

Like a James Bond movie, a white van pulled up. Four men wearing immaculate white jackets bolted out, running up the street, while another man in a white jacket revved the engine of a new Mercedes, ready to peel out. There were no machine guns. This was a professional version of a game many San Franciscans play when having visitors.

When you reach a certain level of affluence in the city, you decide that paying for parking is worth it. No longer will you spend half an hour every evening jockeying for a parking space on the street.

But if you have visitors, they have to go through the parking ritual. Unless -- you pull your car out of its safely assigned space, and use it to hold a public space near your house for your friends' car.

Enter the professionals. I had seen them in Pacific Heights before, but didn't realize they were a highly coordinated, crack team of athletes. Soiree Valet -- they have a van full of drivers. If you're having a party and don't want to piss off your neighbors, you have them park your visitors' cars a block or two away. They shuffle the fleet of cars to keep spaces available for incoming visitors. Or maybe a visitor finds a parking space, and calls the van to pick them up. At any rate, if you live in Pacific Heights, you don't worry about visitors having parking spaces; you hire professionals.