They provide a true service to humankind, these cheerful men.

Without them, the desperate would grow pale and listless, condemned to drag suitcases of dirty clothes and bags of booze and cigarettes around for eternity. These are the men in Dublin airport car-park who help people find their cars.

It is not easy to lose a few tonnes of metal, rubber, plastic and chrome. But up to 40 people a week do just that in Dublin airport during the high season.

And, as Michael the kindly carsleuth assured me: "You didn't lose it. You just forgot where you left it." It was a slight, but heartening, distinction.

The memory of seven days before was a bit of blurred. The car had been parked, the bags grabbed and the flight made by the usual whisker.

If you have a polaroid camera you should use it to record the exact location, make, model and registration of your car. Then you can show the snap to car-park officials to prove you do have a car and it is parked in this car-park.

Next, you should attach a large helium balloon to the aerial, with the words "OVER HERE" on it, and paint a line of arrows on the asphalt all the way to the terminal.

Alternatively, you could simply write down the car-park, level and bay number on your ticket. Those who do, walk calmly to gleaming cars and drive smugly away with a soothing concerto playing on the stereo.

And there is nothing more comforting, after a charter-flight from hell, than sinking into the familiarity of your own car. It is a little homecoming, without the brown envelopes, wilted plants and dodgy milk carton in the fridge.

So Michael and his colleagues have to deal with some fairly distressed people when this Nirvana is lost. Admitting that you have lost your car is not easy. You are tempted to take a taxi home and return with a sniffer dog, or a competent friend, when the bewilderment has worn off.

But these men don't snigger or patronise. Their bedside manner couldn't be more reassuring. The backs of their broad shoulders in their cheery yellow and green jeep seem to say: "Don't worry, we'll find it."

I am not the first and I won't be the last: they even have regulars, they say fondly - people who regularly lose (or forget where they've left) their cars.

Some people swear blind that they parked it against a wall in the indoor car-park and it turns out to be in the middle of the outdoor one. He could tell you stories about people, Michael says without a hint of bitterness. There was the man who described his car down to the widget on the windscreenwiper and then slapped his forehead after a long search and said, "Oh, I just remembered. I was driving the wife's car." The car-park officials have a computer log of car registrations to help them find it.

And losing your car is not a woman thing, according to the men who should know. The hapless, carless type is equally likely to be male as female, another heartening thought.

So we cruise the rows of cars, looking for mine, finding it after about 10 minutes, exactly where it was left.

Relief. Then another driver spots me about to back out of the space. Are you coming out? he inquires in that eyebrows-lifted-in-a-hopeful-but-questioning way. Sure pal, I smile back, this space is all yours.

And so the story should have ended. But turning the key produces nothing but a clunk, as if someone had removed the engine for a laugh.

A flat battery was diagnosed by the man in the car behind and I

set off on another trudge to the valet garage. "You're not going to believe this lads but . . ." THEY take it in their stride. "Put the bonnet up. We'll be there in a few minutes." And they are. And they start it. For free. This is a service they provide on average 20

times a day, with almost 8,000 people last year returning to the joy of a flat battery.

If this was a disaster movie it would be called Terminal

Stupidity. But lessons have been learnt. And don't worry Michael. It won't happen again.