Kabluey is weird. I know I have hinted at that before, but I’m not sure I have adequately conveyed just how weird she is. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to explain this idea now, either, since words fail me when it comes to communicating this aspect of Kabluey. I can only tell you that she is not normal. Funny, smart, charming, determined, compassionate- yes. But normal? Not so much.

Because of her innate weirdness, you can imagine how eager I was to go to Fort Myers and meet Kabluey’s mom. Almost immediately, though, I realized that while she is definitely weird, she is weird in a way that is exactly opposite of Kabluey. This caused a short-circuit in my brain that I just now feel like I am recovering from.

The one (and maybe only) similar feature that they share is they are both very tiny. And by tiny I don’t mean short, I mean stick-like. By contrast, I am not tiny and do not in any way resemble a stick. I knew that already, but just to drive the point home I got to witness the following conversation:

Kabluey’s Mom (KM): Kabluey, I have some belts that you might like. Why don’t you take them home with you?
Kabluey: Thanks mom.
KM: You should definitely take them because I have several others.
Kabluey: I would, but rhinestone studded belts are not really my thing.
KM: Are you sure? I think you would look nice with a little bling.
Kabluey: I’ll pass, but maybe K8 wants them. (Insert devilish grin)
KM: (glancing over at K8) Well, her waist isn’t as small as yours.

You know what else isn’t as small as Kabluey’s waist? My middle finger. Do you want to see it, KM?

So, they don’t have the same fashion sense. And they don’t look alike. Kabluey looks like whatever this world intended her to look like, and her mom looks like whatever the world intended her to look like as long as that intent included hair dye, assorted cosmetic procedures and lots of sun. Which is not to say she doesn’t look good. She is a very attractive woman, but she looks nothing like Kabluey. And really, she doesn’t even look like any of Kabluey’s three brothers, leaving me to wonder if one day she picked up the wrong kids from school and just never got around to sorting out her error. Exchanges can be a bitch.

She also acts nothing like Kabluey. Kabluey is easy going and doesn’t stress about basic decisions like what to do for dinner. On two separate occasions, that very question turned into a full-blown battle. The first time, we were trying to find a restaurant to go to. Kabluey’s mom threw out several suggestions, but somehow became obsessed with an all-you-can-eat fish buffet that didn’t have a liquor license so people were encouraged to bring their own booze. This doesn’t even seem legal to me, but I learned that things in Florida are a little different than here in the Pacific Northwest. Plus, low-quality fish sitting out endlessly on banquet tables seemed like an invitation for food poisoning, a possibility that occurred to everyone except Kabluey’s mom. The second dinner fiasco, which I shall refer to as The Great Fajita Debate of 2010, involved Kabluey’s mom calling her children one by one (from some undisclosed location. For whatever reason, that woman sure did disappear a lot) and talking to them until they reached maximum frustration and hung up on her, at which point she just dialed the next offspring down the line.

Kabluey’s grandma, I will say, does exhibit some similar characteristics as Kabluey. For one thing, she has an awesome sense of humor, and she didn’t get worked into a frenzy about where we were going to go for lunch. On the other hand, she tricked us into going to a Walmart by referring to it vaguely as “the yarn store”, and I spent the better part of twenty minutes helping her shuffle through the city-block sized mega store until she finally managed to commandeer a motorized cart from an unsuspecting and equally elderly customer, an accomplishment that simultaneously impressed and horrified me.

In the end, I’m not sure anything that I witnessed in Fort Myers really gets to the root of why Kabluey is so weird. But it does make me appreciate even more the exact brand of weirdness that she has made her own, and that is something I am thankful for.

Tags: Fort Myers, genetics are weird