The aging process terrifies me. I’ve recently come upon the realization that one day I, too, will grow old, my knees will get sore, I’ll need to get pill boxes with really large letters on them and my entire body will start to sag.

My grandparents came and visited me last week for an action-packed couple of days that involved a lot of sitting and talking about the weather. When I was little, I never really thought of them as old, but it occurred to me last week that they are quickly moving into the status of ancient.

My dad encouraged me to take them to the French Quarter and show them around. What he didn’t tell me was how they wouldn’t want to walk anywhere. We had to rest every block. And every other block we had to find a bathroom. And in the blocks between that, they would discuss how they had to go to the bathroom.

When we finally got to our lunch destination, they complained about the prices of bottled beer and how far the walk back was.

They also stayed with me, which was fine until the house started to smell like lotion and medicine, and they wanted to start the day at six-something-in-the-morning. They wanted to know what every kind of tree, flower and bird was, and of course, I had no clue. They also wanted to know what kind of shower cleaning solution I used because it wasn’t good enough.

By the end of the week I would have paid them to remember what my boyfriend’s name and major was, just so I wouldn’t have to explain it to them one more time.

They lectured me about eating fresh produce and learning how to cook, each of which I do on a rare basis.

Don’t get me wrong. It was nice to see them. I just thought I was going to lose my mind by the end of the week.

I hope I’m not offending anybody. I really do think there are good things about aging, and aging gracefully at that; this last week just started to make me think.

Does getting old mean I’ll start to disregard other people’s opinions, feelings and lifestyle?

Does it mean I’ll start to loathe hip-hop, physical activity and food with preservatives?

It seems to me that the older people get, the more set in their ways they get and the more they tend to simplify things into clear-cut answers. I’m really not sure if this is an advantage of getting older; maybe you really do start attaining all the answers you wondered about your whole life.

Or maybe its just that you start to think you have all the answers, when really you’re still as clueless as everyone else and getting older is just a big trick being played on you.

It seems that getting older becomes a constant game of trying to convince people you really do know what is going on.

Whatever it is, the dynamic between old people and young people will never change. We are each doomed to spend our entire lives thinking the other one is wrong.