I think I was the last person in the Commonwealth to vote today.

“You just made it.” It was 7:59 on the clock on the wall of the Portuguese American Club. The midterm primary ended at 8:00.

Why is it that every poll worker is grumpy? Is it because they’re old and it’s past their bedtime? Because they think they’re more politically involved than the rest of us? Because they have to deal with the ~20% of the citizenry who head out in the rain . . . in the dark . . . on a Tuesday to exercise their democratic rights? Because they remember when every person their age voted in every election and knew all the details about every candidate, and now the young people show up in “Where the hell is Grinnell?” T-shirts? Even in friendly Iowa and Wyoming they couldn’t be bothered.

I wasn’t having it. “It took me forever to find this place!” I went online to find my voting place (having lost the card the town sent a year ago when they moved it from a block away to about 2 miles away), got the address (119 Prospect Street), and left the house at 7:20. The Portuguese American Club — a local drinking establishment not well known to those of us not of the Portuguese persuassion — is not on Prospect Street. At 7:50 someone in a nearby laundromat gave me directions that involved an invisible Chinese restaurant and “low income housing.” I drove by the entrance once before taking another swing at it. The second time around, on a whim, I turned right at a dark, unmarked entrance where I eventually saw a thick mob of people holding campaign signs, a couple police officers, a few candidates, and tons of cars — the club was having a party. The party-goers were blocking my access to the unmarked voting place. I parked in the back by the kegs.

I gave my street address, took my ballot, walked to a booth, filled in the optical scan ballot for the two races I cared most about (governor and first mate), picked the candidates that were from my town or were female or sounded nice for the rest of the offices (clerk of courts? really?), and headed over to the check out table.

“Hurry up. C’mon! C’mon! C’mon!” I put my ballot in the counting machine at almost the same moment the VFW-ish guy hit the power switch. “I want that ballot count . . . soon!”

WTF, Milford!? It hardly seemed worth it. My candidates had better damned well win.