Travis McGee votes

I am Travis McGee today and a committed, decided voter, convinced that the oval I blacken makes a difference.

It is vainglorious, but it is good for the soul to scour the rust from the tin-plate  armour, adjust the cookpot helmet, mount my pathetic Rocinante, swaybacked, galled  and, like me I fear, something of a redundancy in this Brave New World.

I am off to tilt me the Hell out of a quasi-American Windmill. May my bent lance lodge between the blades -- stopping them cold -- of narcissism, revenge, contrived drama, and a lust for those glorious days when Lenin was still respectable, the days when all that was deemed good was deemed collective. Collective planning. Collective work. Collective reward. Collective guilt. Or, as the Windmill huffs it: "Forward." Or, sometimes, "You didn't build this."

Which is to say that I take my little vote seriously, almost ceremoniously.  I will shower and closely shave, dress neatly, and enter the polling place as a first sergeant enters the company barracks.

But sadly I will still be thinking of the corollary decision. Against the sitting ruler, certainly, but for whom?

My state is close. The historically best poll calls it His Ineptness by five, meaning I should feel free to cast an honest libertarian vote. Other polls have it closer. Meaning that I should choose the quasi-Republican.

I suspect the decision won't come until the pencil hovers over the paper. I may or may not report it, but you'll be able to figure it out if you happen to be around  Smugleye-on-Lake voting central.

If for Mr. Johnson, I'll walk out whistling a happy tune as I stride off to round up a few election-gathering supplies for this evening.

If for Mr. Romney, I'll slink home, futilely trying to persuade myself  that I am a hero of the fighting retreat, but feeling badly in need of another shower.