Okay, sure, I've put a handful of student body presidents into office and placed a bid as to where my co-workers and I would be ordering take-out -- but deciding between Jimmy John's and Moe's Burritos isn't a nation-shaping choice. Electing a nominee for president, on the other hand, is.

I throw the term "civic duty" around a bit when I talk about elections, but when the definition of that catchphrase is considered, it can give a man illusions of grandeur. I am following in the footsteps of the founding fathers of our country, fulfilling a charge set before me more than two centuries ago by those who carried our fledgling nation on their backs. For many of us, it's the most clear-cut, effective way that we interact with the political infrastructure of America -- as such, I thought it would be a painful process, like pulling teeth, or watching any romantic comedy that features Jennifer Lopez.

At worst, it would be the equivalent of visiting the DMV -- a phenomenon of bureaucratic aggreavation that I'm sure reaches across state lines. Imagine my surprise when I completed the entire voting process, from checking in to submitting my ballot, in about twelve minutes.

I pulled up to my designated polling place, my former elementary school (which seems to have undergone not only a name change in the eleven years since I made my junior high transformation, but also a significant amount of wear and tear) with my older brother in tow. As we made the short walk into the school's main hallway, I couldn't shake one feeling as I choked back eleven years worth of nostalgia -- I am a giant. At least, that's how I felt in comparison to the last time I stood within that school, when I was sans a few feet of height and one pair of manly, manly sideburns.

As I lumbered into the polling room, squeezing my massive frame through the doorway, I immediately recognized it as my kindergarten classroom. Yes, sixteen years earlier, Mrs. McIntyre was teaching me how to skip, and the primary colors, and that while Elmer's glue sticks may look like string cheese, eating enough could be detrimental to my five-year-old stomach. Important life lessons, to be sure -- if I only I would have known that sixteen years later, I'd be back in that same room casting my vote for the presidential candidate, I ... well, I probably wouldn't have any idea what that meant, and would have continued eating glue, or pennies, or "silly scent" markers. As a child, I had a voracious appetite for the otherwise inedible.

As a registered independent, I was able to vote in either primary I wanted. I picked Democratic, as things on the Republican side are more or less wrapped up by now. My brother perplexed the elderly women working the polling place with his own registered affiliation.

"G? What does a G mean," one woman asked her cohorts, confused.

"General, I guess," one of the others replied.

I turned to my brother inquisitively.

"Did you register for the Green party, Travis?"

"I may have registered for the Green party."

There's nothing wrong with the Green party, mind you, but my brother is not what I would call an environmentalist. His knowledge of matters Agrarian stems from a particularly stimulating trip to the Bob Evans Farm he took while in third grade. He admitted to signing up for the party on a lark in high school, to set himself apart from his major party contemporaries. However, according to the poll workers, he was allowed to vote in either party's primary -- like me, he chose Democratic.

I personally had no problems with the iVotronic touch screen system for voting, though my gigantic index finger was somewhat weary after poring over the ten pages of elected officials that were on the primary ballot. I had done my research, and knew more or less how to vote in every single category. The same could not be said for my sibling, who had done research on the national and state-wide positions, but voted on local and county positions based solely on name recognition -- even for certain incumbents he thought had done a lackluster job during their last term in office.

"Hey, better the Devil you know," he explained.

(Fun fact: Travis actually attempted to take a picture of me to use in association with this post while we were in the polling place. A split second after the flash on his Powershot went off, one of the women working the polls actually pulled out a whip, and flayed a good chunk of skin off of the back of Travis' hand. This, of course, sent the camera flying through air towards my brother's assailant, who managed to catch the camera in her mouth and crush it between her mighty jaws.)

(Okay, fine, that didn't happen, but he did get yelled at for taking a picture inside a polling place, which is apparently a no-no. Lesson learned.)

All in all, it took me less time to vote than it did to fill up my Chinese take-out box at our celebratory meal shortly thereafter. If you're reading this, and you're registered, and you haven't hit the polls yet -- don't fret about wasting your whole day in a long line. Don't panic about having to cut through miles of red tape. There are plenty of polling places around the state, meaning nobody should have to wait in a long line -- even if you do, just think of how proud John Adams would be of you, knowing that you're skipping that TiVo'd episode of "Dancing With the Stars" to fulfill your ... well, you know.