This fine November morning, I know how Marco Polo must have felt when he was but a day's ride from Kublai Khan's court.
I know how Henry Stanley's step must have quickened when he was but a day's trek from Dr. Livingstone's African village.
I know how Edmund Hillary's spirits must have soared when he knew he was but a day's climb from Mount Everest's summit.
This time tomorrow, the polls will be open – and the end of this electoral Bataan death march will be in sight, ultimately to be spelled out by John King on his magical blue-and-red CNN map.
Like a lucky kid on Christmas, I'll be among the first voters at my garage polling place on Chelsea Avenue in Bird Rock.
With a skipping heart, I'll inquire of the gracious volunteers how the early turnout looks.
Then I'll take my ballot and, armed with The San Diego Union-Tribune's endorsements (a couple of which, I confess, I'll overrule), I'll make my top-secret votes.
An “I Voted” sticker on my shirt pocket, I'll drive to work without a care in the world.
Tomorrow, American presidential history, for nearly two years stalled in heartburning campaign mode, will break through the dam and start taking its course, for better or worse.
Election Day.
That's how I spell RELIEF.
You think I'm a bit overjoyed about what Election Day will bring?
Not by a long shot. Consider what, come tomorrow, I will never have to do:
I will never again have to seriously contemplate crumbling half of a Valium in my wife's meatloaf if her candidate – The One she has supported with a passion bordering on otherworldly possession – appears to be fading.
Granted, I may have to have her committed to a psychiatric ward if he loses tomorrow night, but I'll gladly face that possibility if it means I'll never again have to wake up at 3 a.m. and find her in a shawl searching the Internet for new tracking polls.
I will never again have to watch MSNBC's madman Keith Olbermann or Fox's conspiracy-crazed Sean Hannity to feel that I'm in touch with the lunatic poles of the campaign.
I will never again have to listen to AM-radio trash talkers Michael Savage or Mark Levin to comprehend the depth of the hatred in some demented quarters for Barack Obama.
I will never again have to wonder if some grotesque e-mailed attack against John McCain (what did he call his wife in public?) or Obama (is he a Muslim born in Kenya?) might be true until I check it out and find it isn't.
I will never again have to listen to paranoid charges that ACORN threatens the foundation of democracy or, on the other hand, GOP voter-suppression tactics threaten the foundation of democracy.
I will never again have to brace for eruptions of the fire-breathing Rev. Jeremiah Wright or Sarah Palin's weird, witch-obsessed minister.
I will never again have to hear cruel code words – socialist, Marxist, spreading the wealth, erratic, confused, 100 years in Iraq – used like meat cleavers to bloody both candidates.
I will never again have to link to the Drudge Report or Huffington Post for campaign news, only to be seduced by sensational headlines worthy of the tabloid News of the World.
I will never again have to call up RealClearPolitics.com or fivethirtyeight.com for the latest poll numbers. (And if I do, there will be no numbers because there will be no race.)
I will never again have to look at photographs of President Bush and McCain embracing and be told to believe that they are, in fact, soul-mated Siamese twins when it's pretty clear they detest each other.
I will never again have to consider the horror – the horror! – of William Ayers, probably the least-scary terrorist ever resurrected.
I will never again have to give one fig about Joe the Plumber, a witless campaign prop that novelists Carl Hiaasen or Christopher Buckley would have thought too ridiculous for satire.
I will never again have to face the fact that a vote in Florida or Virginia or Ohio is more important than my vote in California. (OK, at least not for another four years, unless the country comes to its senses and elects presidents by popular vote.)
I will never again have to answer reader complaints that I'm a secret McCain or Obama shill sending out coded messages to my comrades on the right or the left.
I'll say this honestly, clearly and loudly: THE COUNTRY WILL SURVIVE NO MATTER WHAT. THEY'RE BOTH DECENT MEN WHO WANT TO DO AN IMPOSSIBLE JOB. I DON'T CARE WHO WINS SO LONG AS MY WIFE SURVIVES WITH HER SANITY INTACT!
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com
