70 Staples – Not broken. Rebuilt.

70 Staples Fortnite Fiasco

I did not arrive at age 60 expecting to spend my evenings in sequins, stealing cars from strangers, and being yelled at by three people in my headset.

And yet, here we are.

If you had told me a few years ago that I would become a Fortnite gamer at this age, I would have laughed right in your face and then probably asked you to repeat yourself because I assumed you had suffered some kind of minor head injury.

Now, to be fair, I was not entirely unfamiliar with video games. Years ago, when my step kids were little, I had played my share of Rugrats, Bugs Bunny, and just enough Red Dead Redemption and Call of Duty to prove that I possessed neither tactical instincts nor hand-eye coordination under pressure. Still, that was ancient history. Back then my knees were younger, my patience was longer, and I could read a menu without holding it at arm’s length like a hostage note.

Fast forward to about three years ago.

I had met my best friend, now my fiancé, for lunch in Celebration after a doctor’s appointment. We were catching up when he casually asked if I had ever heard of Fortnite.

Well, yes. I don’t live under a rock. I had heard of Fortnite in the same vague cultural way I had heard of cryptocurrency, Coachella, and Brazilian butt lifts. That does not mean I understood any of them, nor did I have any desire to participate.

Still, he took my answer as an invitation to begin what can only be described as a TED Talk for the mentally unprepared.

He explained skins, squads, crowns, emotes, reboots, loot, the Battle Bus, and enough assorted nonsense that I began to suspect Fortnite was not a game at all, but some kind of elaborate digital religion for people with excellent Wi-Fi.

I listened politely. I nodded at appropriate intervals. But inwardly, I was beginning to question his version of reality.

Then I moved in a year ago, and everything escalated.

By then he had enjoyed a full two-year head start feeding his addiction. What I had assumed was a hobby had turned into something much more serious. He had a squad. A regular squad. It consisted of him and two women.

Two women.

Naturally, I had questions.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “They’re married. To each other. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

No. No, I do not. I became an ordained minister years ago to marry a treasured family member to her girlfriend. That wasn’t even on the radar. 

The problem was that I appeared to be living with a man who had formed a tactical emotional support unit on the internet, and I was being asked to join it.

He kept urging me to try Fortnite. The squad needed a fourth member. Apparently this was urgent. One day, before I fully understood what was happening, we were standing in Walmart buying me a brand-new Xbox.

A brand-new Xbox.

This man spent roughly five hundred dollars so I could “try it and see if I like it,” which is also how people accidentally end up owning jet skis. And horses.

At that point, I felt pressure.

Every day, the girls would ask my fiancé when I was finally going to play with them, and I started to feel like a debutante being presented to society. Only instead of a ball gown and white gloves, I was heading into combat with zero experience and the vague sense that I might humiliate myself in front of strangers.

Now, I should mention that I am an extremely competitive person. I do not enjoy losing. I do not enjoy almost losing. I like to win thoroughly, elegantly, and in a manner that leaves no room for debate.

Unfortunately, I had watched enough as a bystander by then to know Fortnite offered none of those guarantees.

Sometimes they won.

Sometimes they got absolutely slaughtered.

And judging from my fiancé’s reaction, losing was not simply disappointing. It was a spiritual event.

The last thing I wanted was to be the weak link. I did not want to be the reason the whole team died while my future husband processed it like a personal betrayal. So I stalled. He suggested I practice in a creator map first, which is a lovely way of saying I was sent off to embarrass myself in private.

Eventually, I got brave enough to join a live game.

The girls put me at ease instantly. They were warm, funny, and somehow made it all feel less like online gaming and more like I had wandered into a cocktail party where everyone happened to be heavily armed.

They were also deeply protective of me.

Not in a sweet little supportive way, either. More like I was an aging heiress who had wandered into a war zone and they had been assigned to keep me alive at all costs.

And that first day, I learned some valuable lessons.

For instance, always thank the bus driver before you leap into probable death.

I found this oddly touching. Here we all were, being transported to chaos and violence, and yet manners still mattered. That says something good about society.

I also learned that jumping from the Battle Bus is far less glamorous than it sounds. One moment you’re standing there minding your own business, and the next you’re plummeting toward earth like an unsupervised ham. Somewhere in that panic, you are supposed to deploy a glider. This would be comforting if you actually knew where the glider button was.

I did not.

Then there was looting.

Looting in Fortnite is not optional. You must loot like your life depends on it, because it absolutely does. You run through buildings grabbing weapons, ammo, shields, and healing supplies with the desperate focus of a woman trying to clear the good towels off a discount rack before church lets out.

Then came the footstep icons.

If you don’t know what those are, imagine tiny visual warnings that someone nearby is moving toward you and may soon attempt to kill you. They float around ominously like digital vultures.

Bad. Very bad.

Run.

I also learned that Fortnite has vehicles one can drive, and that not every person honking at you is your friend.

This feels like something that should be obvious, yet there I was, climbing into a stranger’s vehicle because they beeped at me like we had carpooled before. I cannot adequately describe the howls of laughter that erupted in my headset when my team realized I had accepted transportation from the enemy.

Apparently one should not do that.

I have never lived it down.

Then there was the crown.

Crowns, I would later learn, are important. Unfortunately, while leaping from the bus and frantically searching for my glider button like an elderly paratrooper, I somehow threw mine to the ground.

This fact was brought to my attention by my beloved protectors in the form of completely uncontrolled laughter.

And then there is my particular gift in combat.

Some people return fire.

Some people build.

Some people snipe.

Apparently, I distribute healthcare.

For reasons I still do not fully understand, I have a tendency in the heat of battle to fling med kits, shields, and healing items into active combat like I’m running a field hospital with no standards. I have undoubtedly aided the enemy on more than one occasion. There are likely players out there to this day who remember the weird older woman in a fabulous skin who showed up during a firefight and accidentally improved their survival odds.

I regret nothing, except perhaps my aim.

Still, one of the finest parts of Fortnite has nothing to do with combat.

It’s the lobby.

If you’ve never experienced it, the lobby is where you wait before the game starts, and it is one of the few places in life where you can dance with strangers dressed like bananas and lizards, while looking hotter than Shakira in a rotating collection of fabulous skins.

And let me tell you, I have embraced that part wholeheartedly.

There is something deeply satisfying about being a respectable 60-year-old woman with bills, responsibilities, and a decent day job, while also being able to show up online looking like a smoke show in combat boots and execute dance moves that would put me in traction if attempted in real life.

Fortnite has given me many things, but perhaps most importantly, it has given me outfits.

It has also given me something I never saw coming: real friendship.

What started as my fiancé’s favorite obsession and a Walmart investment purchase turned into a standing date with people I genuinely adore. The two women I was originally side-eyeing have become dear friends. The kind you laugh with in-game, laugh harder with afterward, and occasionally meet for coffee in real life, which still feels slightly absurd when you consider that our relationship began with them trying to keep me from getting murdered behind a shrub.

That may be the most surprising thing about this whole adventure. At 60, I did not expect to find a new hobby, a new skill set, and new friends all inside the same ridiculous digital universe.

And yes, I have to give a nod to one of my favorite Fortnite streamers, HappyHappyGal, because every older woman boldly running around a map looking fabulous and trying not to panic needs her heroes. You rock. Period.

Now for the important part.

For all my confusion, accidental generosity toward the enemy, and deeply questionable transportation choices, I did clutch one time. And not just in a small way.

During the Star Wars season, I found myself as the last member of the squad still alive.

Now if you don’t play Fortnite, let me explain the horror of that moment. When your teammates die, they don’t just disappear. They get to watch YOU. Through your eyes, as you panic, desperately trying to stay alive. So there I was, the least qualified member of the group, suddenly under observation by people who had every reason to regret inviting me.

The pressure was biblical.

And in some fit of panic-fueled courage, I stole a TIE fighter.

I was not supposed to be in a TIE fighter. Frankly, I was barely supposed to be trusted with footwear.

But there I was, flying across the map in stolen Imperial equipment, wobbling through the sky like patio furniture in a hurricane, determined to reach the farthest reboot van imaginable.

Somehow, I landed that damned thing on a bridge. Not gracefully. Not elegantly. But on the bridge.

I jumped out, dashed to the reboot van, rebooted the whole squad, and we went on to win the match.

We won.

So now, whenever I do something ridiculous, like hurl healing supplies into a firefight or nearly get lured into a stranger’s car by a friendly honk, I remind myself of one thing:

I can clutch.

I can sweat when required.

I can reboot an entire squad under pressure.

At 60 years old, no less.

And for the record, that adorable, kind, generous man who spent five hundred dollars so I could “try it and see if I liked it” knows me better than I know myself. I did like it. I like the squad, the chaos, the absurd outfits, and the deeply satisfying discovery that even at 60, there are still ridiculous new ways to surprise (and reinvent) yourself. What a wonderful way to cement a bond even further!

And if you’re very lucky, some of those surprises come with crowns, coffee, and great friends you never saw coming.

Still, if you honk at me in battle, there is a very real chance I will get in the car.