I must confess that I succumbed to temptation. Plump and alluring, beckoning me forward, even though I knew now wasn’t the time. Alas, I couldn’t keep my hands away, so I ripped it open and out spilled the bountiful contents — everything I needed to vote in the Nov. 2 general election.

This was my first experience voting by absentee ballot. As a long-time opponent of absentee voting, I was shocked that I had fallen so far so fast. But they shut down my old polling place so I signed up for an absentee ballot. The first one arrived during our new dictatorial primary election, so I ignored it. Nobody’s going to tell me whom I can’t vote for. But this new absentee was for the general election, with all candidates fair game for my personal yea or nay.

I was aghast that the ballot arrived Oct. 13, three full weeks before the election. Only a knave would vote so early. What might happen before now and election day that could change my mind? The possibilities were too endless to contemplate, but I did anyway. What if John dumped Teresa for Cheney’s gay daughter? What if Laura dumped George for Karl Rove? What if John Ashcroft actually found a terrorist, or a terrorist found John Ashcroft?

All these things could affect my selection for President. Think of all the pre-election hit pieces that would have no bearing on me, if I voted early. The political parties and their front groups would waste all that printing and postage and the money they spend on TV airtime. No, I planned to postmark my ballot on election day.

But the temptation didn’t go away, even after the ballot envelope was opened. As I sat reading the newspaper and watching TV that Wednesday night, I got fed up with charges, countercharges, lies, distortions, and, even worse, the occasional glimpse of the ugly truth. It was so painful that I thought, why not just end it all right now? No, I wasn’t thinking of suicide, I was thinking of voting. My tempting ballot, sitting on top of the staircase, seemed to be calling my name.

The later it got, the more tempting became that siren song of surrender emanating from my ballot. When the midnight hour struck, I was mesmerized. I walked to the ballot as in a trance, twisted a paper clip to use as a poker and started punching out candidate names and simultaneously tearing off the hanging chads on the back of the ballot.

In what seemed like seconds I was finished, my duty as a citizen nearly complete. There was no turning back now. The next morning the stamp went on the envelope, and the envelope went in the mailbox. I had voted ­ three weeks early. It felt better than I could ever have imagined.

Since that fateful vote, this election campaign has been the most fun campaign I have ever endured. I receive hit pieces in the mail and chortle, “Doesn’t matter!” I watch debates on TV, like the one between Rossi and Gregoire, and laugh uproariously, as if I’m watching the culls from “Last Comic Standing.” I watch Kerry and Bush sling mud and root for both to succeed, because I’ve already decided.

I take back all those bad thoughts I used to have about early absentee voters. It’s not that you don’t care about the issues, it just that you’re sick of the issues. Thank goodness I succumbed to temptation and joined your ranks.

In fact, if somebody will send me a ballot I’m ready for the 2008 election.