Dementia is fun.

When do you realize that you're old? When is it that you discover that the wrinkles on your face, the lack of hair on your head, the aches and pains that plague your every move is the accumulation of the years finally catching up with you? When do you discover that you've lived out the majority of your life and have done everything you've wanted to do?

What if you never do?

Tuesday I had a four-hour stint as a volunteer at the veteran's home in Stony Brook. For four hours, I was the on-call Xerox boy. For four hours, I was the trash man. For four hours, I was the man with the stapler. For four hours, I was up to my waist in the feces of old people.

I blame college for this.

My mom told me that I needed some community service on my resume for college.

I have community service.

No, she said. Colleges want to see you helping old people, not singing.

Singing is community service.

Not during the summer!

And so I find myself stuck at the veteran's home. It was an interesting experience I'll say. It could have been worse, though. I've heard horror stories from both Pat and Tita Yoyi. You've heard about these people too.

These are the people that shake your hand after handling their own feces. These are the people that ask you where the bus stop is - repeatedly. These are the people that mumble nonsensically, rapidly, and constantly.

The people that barf and eat at the same time.

The guys that don't know who they are or where they are anymore.

The people abandoned by their family to be cared for by strangers. Albeit, trained strangers.

They're all here. And you thought they were just urban legends.

The first hour I Xeroxed twelve sets of twenty-odd packets of informative flyers. Papers taken out of books, off the internet. Off the humorous toilet papers that have writings on them.

"What do you do when a HEAT WAVE strikes?"

"Who's at RISK for HYPOTHERMIA?"

Imagine burning and freezing at the same time. It was all that I could think about when I was making those copies. I thought of eating cold spicy food.

Tita Yoyi asked me to come with her on her rounds next. We didn't get to far though - she volunteered me for trivia time. Trivia time is where you take several disoriented old people and shove them unwillingly into the recreation room, which is also the dining hall and, for some, the bathroom. Then, because they're unable to move, you leave them there to be tended to by the help - little ol' me - who happens to have no experience whatsoever with elderly health care, so if one of them starts to have a heart attack, they're screwed, and I get the blame. Now with all the old people assembled before me, I take trivia questions from a book and let them answer it.

The thing is, you can't use any questions that'll stir them up.

Which World War II battle ... nope, that's no good.

The Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Lu ... uh-uh, that's not gonna work either.

Oh, here's one.

What's the name of Mickey Mouse's dog?

Gus says, very very weakly, Pluto.

That's right Gus!

Okay, who's the loveable child actress that was a "Good Ship, Lollypop?"

Shirley Temple.

Good going, Gus!

Gus is the only one that answers the questions. Well, the only one that answers correctly. He's also one of three people that is actually conscious there. Gus was a cool person though. I'm sure he must have been brilliant when he was younger. He retained the knowledge of information from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. I didn't test his knowledge past there. The man probably knows where I was born.

I leave them there because I've already postponed their dinner time long enough. There's sweat pouring down my back. Tough crowd, tough crowd.

"We're going to the dementia ward now," my aunt says.

"D-d-dementia?" I stutter. I wasn't exactly expecting to be spending time with the ... less well-intact.

"Yes, the dementia ward. You're going to play ball with them!"

I could only imagine what I was going to do. Play ball with the dementia people. Baseball? One old man stands at the plate. I lob a pitch. He hits the ball. I move to field but the ball's too fast. The old man playing first base isn't playing first base but is dancing, because the organ in the background is playing music. The old batter doesn't move but stays at the plate with the bat, having already forgotten hitting the ball.

I'm playing baseball with them?

No, you're throwing around a ball with them. A big beachball.

So we're playing volleyball?

You'll see.

We arrive at the dementia ward. There's an electric door. My aunt informs me that an alarm will sound if they try to get past the door. There's a device strapped to their foot. Think of it as a tracking device like they put on wild life.

So they can be hunted. Except, no guns. Maybe tazers.

Poor old demented prey.

The dementia residents are eating, so my aunt pulls me aside over to the station first. We sit behind the desk. A safe haven for the time being. And then terror strikes in the form of a five-and-a-half-foot-tall man with graying hair and a not-so-wrinkly face that leans over the desk and looks viciously at my aunt.

"Can you open the door? I have to go to the bus stop."

I look at my aunt and she at me. She's been here before. She knows how to handle this.

"Oh, the bus just left!"

"When?"

"Just now! But the next bus will come in an hour. Come back then."

"But I have to go to the bus."

"Yes, yes, come back in an hour."

The man walks away, disappointed momentarily, but soon the thought is forgotten and now he thinks that he is waiting for the bus again. If we stayed where we were, he'd come back to us within 10 minutes to ask if we could open the door so he could go to the bus.

There are stop signs near the entrance of the dementia ward. This to tell the residents that they shouldn't proceed further. It also serves the purpose of satisfying the man who waits for the bus. My aunt says that sometimes he waits at the stop sign and says that the bus is coming.

The people that don't remember their own name. The people that repeat things over and over again without knowing they're saying it. The people who experience jamais vous with every activity.

They're all here.

And you thought they were an urban legend.

We move into their recreation room. There's a big screen TV that's showing Fox 5 News at 6. There's already a guy sleeping on a couch. Another guy parked his wheelchair about two feet away from the TV.

My aunt shows me how to play ball.

In this game you throw a gigantic rubber ball at the residents. It's just like playing catch with your dad, except you don't have a glove, and the people are old enough to be your great grandparents.

Old people have much more energy than you think, too. One man, in his wheelchair alone, smacked back every ball thrown to him. He didn't catch the ball. No. He hit it in midair. Sometimes it came right over to me. But often, it would fly in a random direction in the air and hit another old man in the head.

Old people have a higher tolerance for pain than you think, too.

I liked the dementia ward. Although, that was only my first time. Pat's been there quite a few times. I can't speak the same for him.

Back on the third floor with my aunt and we're doing rounds again. And I'm confronted by Rita.

Being in the presence of Rita is like accidentally wandering into a Dr. Seuss book. Everything she said was a rhyme. Her sentences didn't necessarily have subjects and verbs though. But between all the boxes and foxes, and the things that go pop inside the boxes, which were locked because they were rocked by the knockers that stood in the lot.

She must have been a children's book author when she was younger.

This is how I imagine the author of "Happy Birthday, Moon" today.

I don't know what I think of my experience at the veteran's home. All I can say right now is that it certainly was, in a word, interesting. Would I do it again? Maybe.

"What happens if that guy ever does get out the door so he can go to the bus stop?" I ask my aunt.

She doesn't know.

There aren't any buses here anyway.