I hate parking downtown. I loathe it like many underwater amoebas loathe bleach.

Here is how it normally goes: You drive around the brilliantly laid-out downtown streets searching for any sign of one of the few parking spaces whose meter is not taped off (and that allows you to park for longer than a handful of seconds without having to rush to feed it) or a parking lot that does not look like it works on the side as a bombing range test site.

Then you spend your day in a game of parking-ticket Chance.

Yes, parking is the wonderful, quirky afterbirth of our brilliantly planned downtown area and beautiful commute experience.

All the while, as one searches for a space, predators begin to circle. Like gleeful little mud sharks, they swim among traffic, looking for any hint of a red flag on a meter or car parked incorrectly.

Meter maids, parking cops, parking enforcement officers, immobile vehicular placement experts, %$!@# or whatever you call them, wield a power many of us will never attain or understand. Then, like a frog's tongue darting for a fly, they strike. We can only stand in awe as a slip representing days or weeks of hard-earned wages is slapped onto our windshields. Woe to us all.
 
Or sometimes, we see vehicles that have been savaged more than others. I don't know about you, but when I see the dreaded yellow boot affixed to a car, it is like seeing shredded bloody diving gear floating in the sea. You think of the poor driver, how he must bang his head against his car hood screaming to the sky in futile frustration.

I had it done once. It was like getting a bikini wax job on your tool bag. Once is enough.

So it was with great trepidation that I started watching “Parking Wars” Tuesday nights on A&E.

The show follows the Philadelphia Parking Authority, where we find that there is no love among brothers when it comes to parking. You either are jobbing someone or getting jobbed yourself.

I really want to feel bad for the folks featured on the show fighting with ticketers and tow-truck enforcers. I want to be just as justified with anger along with them and curse those who are oppressing their parking attempts. But I can't. Because it's when I see how these folks act that I think, geeze, what a bunch of morons we all are.

Granted, some parking enforcers can stand to be a bit less obnoxious when it comes to their curbside manner. But as you see on the show, very few, if any, of the folks getting ticketed, towed or booted are any more civil than your average Orc.

Still, I find it hard to watch a show about smiling parking ticket-givers and relate to or like them.

Then again, we could all just follow the damned law and park correctly.