My First CatCon - Yes, You Heard Right

Aug. 13, 2017

A few months ago, when I attended Kitten Rescue's 20th Anniversary, I met someone who told me that I should go to CatCon -- that I would have fun. Although I've attended Comic Cons, Science Fictions cons, media cons, and Star Trek cons over the course of my life, I have never heard of a convention for cat lovers.

Obviously I had to go, so when I learned about this one at the Pasadena Convention Center, I quickly talked another cat guardian friend into going with me. We had a blast going through the dealers room, which had many of the major pet companies showing off their specialties and giving away samples and chances to win something. They also had small specialty companies there, selling things that you would not normally know existed unless you found them online. Then there were the fan type products, small entrepreneurs and artists selling things like artwork, accessories, jewelry and stuffed animals -- all cat related. Many were quite imaginative and all were beautiful.

There was an adoption court where you could meet, play, and adopt kittens from the Pasadena Animal Shelter. Apparently many did get adopted. We made a pact not to go in there because we each are full up and are pushovers.

For an extra fee, you could meet and greet (i.e., pet) Internet cat celebrities, Lil' Bub, Nala, and Oscar the Blind Cat. Meet and greets with human celebrities was free with your entrance fee. Those tickets were all sold out before I had even heard of the convention -- for both days.

The best exhibit for me was World's Best Litter giveaway sweepstakes for a Fiat car -- not because I wanted the car, but because they had a stuffed cat driving it. She was standing up on her hind legs so she could reach the top of the steering wheel to drive the car. I loved it and of course had to get my photo taken with her.

There is a story behind this connection. I drove my 1994 Toyota Corolla for 22 years. For me, a car is just a utility to get me from point A to B, and even though I wanted a built-in Blu-tooth, I saw no reason to buy a new car when I was okay with the Blu-tooth in my ear. Then two things happened. I had an incident of unexpected acceleration that I came out of unscathed but scared to death, especially when others had died in such situations. And Toyota Corporate treated me so shabbily, I vowed never to buy another Toyota, even though I no longer trusted Cory, my Corolla.

I'm also a sucker for animal commercials, meaning I'll watch all of them. So when Subaru ran their Golden Retriever commercials with the dog family driving the car, I watched every one of them. Thus I learned about their Eyesight safety feature system, which would alert you to impending crashes and stop the car. Hopefully, I suspect that you have to be driving at a speed that the car will be able to stop you.

Now I wouldn't buy something just because they had dogs in the commercials, but the dogs or cats will get me to listen to the commercials. After my experience with the unexpected acceleration, I liked what I heard and started to ask around to determine how well my friends and my brother liked their Subarus.

Well, I now own and drive my own Subaru Impreza Sports Wagon, Izzy. So when I saw this display with the cat driving the Fiat, it became the highlight of the day for me.