Just about the time you think lawmakers – at both the state and federal levels – have reached a new low in ways to avoid doing any real work, some legislator digs deep and comes up with an even bigger waste of time.

I don’t have to tell you that we live in a scary world. Our economy is in bad shape, global warming threatens to make my little Austin bungalow a beachfront property, and Clay Aiken has joined the cast of “Monty Python’s Spamalot.” In the face of all these (and other) dire problems, our lawmakers have rolled up their collective sleeves, leapt into action and … investigated steroid use in professional sports.

Now, you could make a real strong argument that, given the brain power we have in Congress, we’re better off if they don’t address any serious issues; after all, if they don’t mess with them, they can’t make them any worse.

Speaking strictly for myself, I couldn’t care less if all those overpaid ballplayers take performance-enhancing drugs. They can inject steroids, snort human growth hormone or massage monkey gonads (with the monkey’s consent, of course) directly into their foreheads and I won’t lose any sleep.

Speaking of gonads, the steroid probe is pure legislative gold compared to what a Virginia state legislator is up to. Last week, State Del. Lionel Spruill introduced a bill that would ban displaying replicas of human genitalia on vehicles.

Spruill called it a safety issue because it could distract other drivers. This came as a huge shock to me, as I have led a sheltered life. I had no idea that displaying replicas of human genitalia on vehicles was a problem. And I certainly didn’t realize that it was such a problem that it required a lawmaker’s intervention.

Spruill said the idea came from a constituent whose young daughter spotted an example of the trail hitch adornment and asked her father to explain it.

"'I didn't know what to tell her,'" Spruill said the constituent told him before Spruill vowed to stop such displays. "I said, 'Sir, I'm going to be a laughingstock, but I'm going to do it,'" he said. Well, he certainly got that right. And Spruill should know – he’s the guy who tried a while back to ban baggy pants worn so low that they expose the wearer’s unmentionables.

He said he won't hesitate to bring a set of $24.95 trailer testicles with him for a legislative show-and-tell. "I'm going to do it," Spruill told a handful of reporters. "I'm going to bring them out here and show them to you till they tell me to stop."

If I were the guy selling these things, I’d send Spruill a set (although it sounds like he may already have a set of his own). You can’t pay for advertising like that.