On April 7th, I attended the first Catsbury Cat Convention in Asbury Park. I am not a cat person because I am not an animal person, but two of my best friends love cats, so I found myself attending. It was an interesting and enlightening event that taught me about cat people and their insane, undying love for cats that have created numerous famous cats. We did not get to go to any of the meet and greets of the famous cats because the tickets were $100 and up. Instead, we went to a few cat presentations, cat bingo, and walked around the merchandise booths.
The first cat presentation was in a interview type setting. The famous cat was Nala; her owners were the ones answering questions. Nala is getting a Facebook watch show in the near future so that viewers can really get to know her personality. She will be going on Steve Harvey to advertise. When she first came out, she was in a weird carrier; apparently, she likes to travel fancy. Her favorite color is blue. She is really clumsy. She has her own Spotify playlist that people can listen to. All the tweets come from her brain and are translated by her owners. She doesn’t have an agent, just her two moms, the fellow animals, and the kids running around the house. I must admit Nala is a very pretty cat, but her fame and the fame of other cats baffles me.
We also went to a presentation by Lil Bub’s owner. This was a lecture type set up where the owner got to tell us the story of Bub and how she is a special kind of cat. She is a special needs cat with osteoporosis and some other difficult problems. The owner had four cats before he got Bub, and they all lived in his recording studio. He saw a photo of Bub, met her, thought she was really special and took her home. She was born without teeth, and eventually, he found out her other special needs. He found out different ways to take care of her, and she has been pretty healthy for awhile now. He originally had just been posting photos of Bub on Facebook, but eventually, she became really big. He decided that Bub needed to share her story with the world to help others, and he needed to assist in anyway he could. She came to have a show, a movie, an album, and all other sorts of things famous people normally have. To me, though, Lil Bub’s story was more meaningful because of all her difficulties and how she has been able to help people. I actually came to really like this cat and her family.
Besides the presentations, we went to car bingo, which was normal bingo and also walked the main convention area where there was merchandise. The products ranged from everything from portraits to pins to shirts to stuffed animals to socks to stickers to magnets. All cat related obviously. There were also haircuts being given and tattoos being done of cats on people. If you got a tattoo, you got free entry forever. All of the money went to the Catsbury shelter. All and all, the experience was good, just strange. I am just grateful to my friends and their fellow cat lovers for letting me observe their world.
