Well. Sometimes I think that public figures just have better script writers than we do, you know?

I don’t think my personal sitcom could ever reach these heights: Florida state representative Bob Allen (D/R?-no really, guess which party) chairs the Florida House Energy Committee and co-chairs John McCain’s campaign in Florida. He is the Police Union’s 2007 Lawmaker of the Year, and he of course, of course!, sponsored six different sex crime bills this year alone, with three focusing on indecent exposure and soliciting sex, and one in particular to “crack down on soliciting sex in public parks.”

We will now pause a moment for everyone to guess what Rep. Allen was arrested for last month in Titusville.

If you guessed “offering oral sex to an undercover agent in a public restroom,” you are clearly ready for a career either in Los Angeles or Washington, DC, if not in Tallahassee.

As you know, I am not easily shocked, but I am easily amused. Rep. Allen is now a personal hero of mine, not because he declined to pay $20 for a blowjob and then offered to do the other guy for free instead, but rather because of his explanation. He had taken shelter in the public toilet, he says, because it was raining, and it seemed to him to be safer to stay in the john than to, I don’t know, get in his car and drive home.

All yet might have been well, if only this guy hadn’t approached him. Wouldn’t you know it, the undercover agent (as it turned out) was, in Rep. Allen’s words, “a pretty stocky black guy, and there’s other black guys around in the park that, you know!” Rep. Allen’s nervousness reached new heights.

And so, in a fit of panic, one supposes, Rep. Allen offered to do the guy so he could get away from him. Clever move, Rep. Allen. Maybe a bit unclear on the concept of “evasive tactics,” but who among us can say what we would do if we were taking shelter in a public park’s men’s room late at night and were approached by some dude who to all appearances was a prostitute?

Okay, so most of us can say what we would do, and it wouldn’t be to offer the guy trade. My own personal response would be to murmur, “Why, how kind of you to think of me, but I must decline. Thank you anyway.” A polite smile and a small nod of the head, perhaps, and then a quiet, “Perhaps you will excuse me,” as I left to take my chances in the downpour. But that’s just me. Your mileage might vary.

It occurs to me, because I am of a wicked turn of mind, that at least we know now why he is the Police Union’s Lawmaker of the Year.