The Grandma Who Plays Video Games

My grandmother is eighty-three and plays video games. Specifically, she plays a farming game on her tablet every morning with her coffee, and she is very, very good at it.

She has a virtual farm with chickens, cows, an apple orchard and a pond. She's on level 147. She checks her crops before breakfast. She texts me screenshots of her prize-winning pumpkins.

When my nephew, who is twelve, found out, he was amazed. Now they play together over video calls every Sunday. He helps her with the hard levels. She gives him advice about "real" farming, from growing up on a farm in Iowa in the 1940s.

Last week she beat him at a game he's been playing for a year. He called me, outraged and delighted. "Grandma is a legend," he said. She is.