“I know,” I said, helping myself to more beef and broccoli. “I know.”

We were at a rundown restaurant in central Phoenix, the kind of place we aging, erudite hipsters love to frequent — a place the food critic I work with discovered last month, a place where you’ll typically be dining alongside large Chinese families. The food is terrific, the decor is not. So, so cool. (You better get there before everyone else discovers it and it’s suddenly not cool at all.)

I realize that not everyone likes to eat at a restaurant that smells like dirty laundry, where an old red leather booth is split down the middle and if you don’t watch it will catch the skin of your thigh, but where there is a stewed pumpkin dish on the menu that will change your life. I realize that, but as I sit here writing, I can’t really think of anyone I know who wouldn’t want to try New Hong Kong on Indian School and 24th Street. (You’re welcome.)

And yet there is, of course, the chance that the place will go out of business next week.

I call it the “My So-Called Life” syndrome. Remember that show, from years ago, with Claire Danes? You loved it, right? All your friends loved it. And then the network cancelled it, because no one watched it.

That is my fear about this election. Even in blood red Maricopa County, home of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Governor Jan Brewer, I have managed to surround myself with people just like me. We text and email, post on Facebook, go to each other’s debate parties and out to lunch. We make fun of Romney’s smirk, roll our eyes at his family, wish he’d make more gaffes.

I watch the polls, I listen to the analysis, but still — how could Obama lose? Everyone I know is voting for him. (Or not saying otherwise.)

The other night, a dinner guest at my home (two, actually) popped my bubble, announcing intentions to vote for Romney. They were as horrified at my decision as I was at theirs. Hey, folks, that’s politics. It’s America. And it was a reminder of how easy it would be for the nation to turn the channel, to cancel the show.

Don’t forget to vote, friends. Don’t forget to vote.