Saturday, 30 November 2002 | My number eight

I'd gone to the fairgrounds for the flea market; I didn't even know about the cat show. Fortunately, by the time I arrived, the cat people had stopped taking money at the door.

"The Cat Fancier's Cat Show" was held in a giant room with rows of tables filling its center, and on the tables were cages filled with felines and fancy blankets and pillows. On top of some of the cages were framed pictures of whatever breed was sitting below, set up almost as a shrine. Many (if not all) of the cages had at least one giant ribbon dangling from them, as if every animal there had been recognized for something. A large proportion of the cats had tremendously long fur and shockingly flat faces. Some of them wore sequined bibs around their necks, and I saw one cat inexplicably wearing a coffee filter.

Most of the cages were guarded by their owners, making sure their cats weren't touched, combing through fur, and talking to the other owners. I asked one woman, who happened to be British, if it would be alright for me to take a picture of her cat. "As long as your camera isn't loud," she said. "This morning one of my cats was unable to show, thanks to the whirring noise made by someone's camera."

The edge of the room was lined with smaller "rooms" divided by white sheets, where the cats were being judged. A woman would remove a cat from its cage, set the cat on a white pedestal, stretch the animal and hold it up, telling the onlookers of its virtues. Look at the strong jaw, the eyes that are almond-shaped on top and round below; look at the long thin body, and at the slender tail. This kitty is my number eight. The crowd would applaud as she delivered the cat back to its cage, and then she would disinfect the stage for number seven.

Where there weren't cat shows and cat cages, there was cat merchandise. Teasers, carpet-covered towers, leather mice, bright tinsel balls, litter scoops in the shapes of cats, and even cat money. When I purchased one of the ridiculous cat dollar bills, the woman behind the counter said, "It's a NINE dollar bill!" and laughed. "Those bills are just for fun," she warned.

I thought I would enjoy the show more than I did. I like cats quite a bit, but perhaps not quite in the same way as some of the owners I encountered. I was probably just imagining it, but the cats themselves seemed sort of disenfranchised and jaded.