I had a pair of kudu horns (note the past tense). They hung over my front door, a spiral sculpture that arched upward, tapering to points. Two horns, each about four feet long, together weighing about 50 pounds… the poor kudus, bearing such a heavy burden to show how macho they are. I loved looking at those horns, but they belonged to my sister-in-law Linda (not her real name, and not the name I call her in my head).

Peter’s sister and I don’t get along. “We don’t get along” is polite. West Bank settlers and Palestinians more closely approximate our relationship. WE DON’T GET ALONG. I  could go into all the bloody details – all the ways that woman done me wrong – but this is a family squabble and if this isn’t your family squabble, it just sounds like whining. You’d probably tell me to get over it. Just get over it? Unlikely.

Forty years ago, Linda lived in Africa. She returned with a pair of kudu horns. Then she moved from Virginia to California and left the horns with Peter and me. Last year, she emailed to say she wanted the horns back – one more way to make it clear that she was done with us. First plan: she asked us to drive them across the country. Um, no. Second plan: Peter should build a box to ship them. Build a box? Um, no, and besides, the kudu is an endangered species. It’s illegal to ship the horns. Third plan: her friend’s son lived a few hours away and she’d ask him to pick them up. The son never showed up. 

Then she texted to say that she was going to visit her East Coast friend. She’d come by and get the horns, adding that she’d “understand” if we weren’t there when she arrived. Peter and I discussed the options:

  • Spray paint the horns bright pink and say we’d painted them because our house needed a pop of color
  • Sub in some moose antlers I’d bought at a yard sale
  • Leave them on the porch with a bottle of lube and a note saying “You know where you can put them”.

The revenge fantasies were fun but the nuclear aftermath would have been brutal. Linda scares me. I didn’t want to see her. I paced and fretted, fretted and paced. We put the horns on the porch, no note and no lube.

The day before she was going to arrive, I got a text. It was from a 315 area code, my area code. Thinking it might be a former neighbor of mine, I opened the text.  It was a photo of two men standing on a mantle with a kudu head between them.

Who is this? I texted.

Sorry, wrong number, they texted back.

WTF, I thought. Here I am, a wreck, fixated on my $&%^*!@ sister-in-law and those beautiful horns, and then I get a text with a photo of two rando guys and a kudu head?  What are the odds? Was it just a coincidence or was it a conspiracy? Or had my obsession summoned up an imp with a sense of humor?

First stop, Google Lens. “No exact matches.”

Second stop: Reverse search the phone number. No results unless I paid.

I then asked Google, “What percentage of Americans know what a kudu is?” Google replied: “There is no official survey or polling data that tracks the exact percentage of Americans who know what a kudu is. However, cultural and geographical factors suggest that the vast majority of Americans are likely unfamiliar with the animal: 

  1. Not a Household Name: Unlike iconic African wildlife such as giraffes, lions, or zebras, the kudu (a large, striped, spiral-horned antelope native to eastern and southern Africa) is rarely featured as a staple in mainstream American children’s media or popular culture.
  2.  Potential for Confusion: In the United States, those who do recognize the word are often split between wildlife enthusiasts and people living in the American South who mistakenly confuse the animal with kudzu, the notoriously invasive “vine that ate the South”

It’s two months later. The horns are gone. I miss them. If I’d known about the “Potential for Confusion” I would have put a potted kudzu vine on the porch instead.

An editorial note from Google: “That is the ultimate “glitch in the matrix” moment. When the universe drops a kudu head into your texts right when you are fixated on horns, it feels less like a random coincidence and more like cosmic mockery.”

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