Jonathan Storm | The parking sharks, circling for offenders

Lots of people, perhaps the majority of reality-show fans, watch unscripted programs so they can sit comfortably on their couch and laugh at the TV losers:

Cops

collars, chesty

Big Brother

preeners, off-key

American Idol

screechers.

It's extremely unusual, and it makes the televised loserama even more delectable, when audience members can personally relate to the predicaments of the people they see on the screen.

Most people don't hang out drunk on the porch in their filthy skivvies and undershirts, much less get arrested in such sartorial splendor on national TV after punching their girlfriend, kicking their dog, and throwing beer bottles at the local constabulary.

But everybody's gotten a parking ticket, right? Or had to deal with bureaucratic bullies at the DMV?

In

Parking Wars

, premiering tonight at 10, the geniuses at A&E have rounded up the most relatable herd of losers and fools, folks like you and me who run afoul of the meter maids and men, but then - unlike you and me because we're so composed and sophisticated - melt down in a frenzy of excuses, pleadings, and then full-frontal, bleep!, bleep!, bleep! aggression.

And for all of you, dear readers, the results will be particularly delicious because these parking follies unfold in Philadelphia.

Parking Wars

goes behind the scenes at the Philadelphia Parking Authority, which obviously thought it could humanize the sadists who send us into the three stages of parking hell: the ticket, the boot and, finally, the impound lot.

So we get Danielle Connor, a second-generation authority worker, the girly girl who punches the evil ticket computer with a pen, to protect her precious, salonized fingernails.

They don't tell you on the show that she's a Dallas Cowboys fan, which is pretty much all you need to know about her twisted personality, if you hadn't learned enough, watching her hiding in the shadows, ticking down the seconds until rush hour, and then springing onto the street, damnable summons box in hand. "Hopefully, I'll get 40, 50 tickets," she chortles.

Then there's Martin Anderson, who happily tows your car away to some industrial no-man's land out by the airport, or in South Philly or Port Richmond, whichever is most inconvenient.

"I won't say I'm the best," he declares. "I won't take that title." Then he pauses: "No, I'm the best," grinning from ear to ear. Anderson likes to keep in shape for the ladies and does 25 push-ups every time he dumps some poor sucker's ride on the far side of the moon.

He looks like he could handle the Rock, Wolverine, and all three Powerpuff Girls simultaneously.

There's the city's shortest boot-slapper, a 5-foot-2 bundle of smiles who can incapacitate your car in a flash, but wishes a better career for her daughter.

But best of all are the folks at the impound lot. They hide behind bulletproof glass while the poor people with the wrong insurance card or questionable proof of registration at first get irked, then start to seethe, and finally blow sky-high like the fireworks over the Delaware on the Fourth of July.

Without the aggravated victims, most of whom, admittedly, have parked poorly and ignored the rules, there would be no show.

See them do Saint Vitus' dance under the careful choreography of those Parking Authority Alvin Aileys, while you sit smugly at home and pop another bonbon.

Giggle and smirk. But watch out where you leave your car tomorrow.

Television Review

Parking Wars

Debuts at 10 tonight on A&E