I’ve driven on Interstate 95 hundreds of times, but this trip was different. I had my usual travel mug of coffee, my box of cheese crackers for road-trip snacking, and a phone filled with podcast downloads.
Only this time, I was also carrying $20,000 worth of rare hairless cats.
They were Sphynx kittens, a breed that retails for up to $6,000 each, according to Google AI. They’re a popular breed of hairless cat, although I’m guessing that’s not based on looks.
“They look like raw chicken,” my daughter texted back when I sent her a photo.
I had four of them. I didn’t know their genders or ages, although they ranged from tiny to nearly cat-sized, so I guessed they weren’t from the same litter. Since we’d be spending seven hours together, I decided to name them — Lucille Bald, Hairless Connick Jr., Alec Baldwin and Alopecia Falk.
I was taking them from a seller in Durham to their new homes: an older doctor in Delaware and — making two assumptions here — a gay couple in northern Pennsylvania.
It’s tough to measure the size of the backyard-breeding market, but estimates put the size of this legal-but-frowned-upon industry at about $3 billion. There could be as many as a quarter-million potential sellers across the country. And I was spending the day muling kittens for one of them. I didn’t know how much they sold for, but given what they offered me as a delivery fee, it must have been substantial.
Like eBay, the seller generally handles delivery logistics, but the buyer covers the cost. Each buyer was paying me $400. The doctor, who texted “I’m so excited” when I told her I was on the road, tipped an additional $50. She greeted me at the door with her two Irish Wolfhounds — yes, imported from Ireland. I wondered how much that delivery person got.
“Cat people are stingy,” a breeder told me. “The real money is in delivering dogs.”
Indeed, after several trips delivering hairless cats as far as New Orleans, I got the chance to mule dogs. Taking a French bulldog to Boston paid me double — $800. And if I wanted, I could fly her up to her new home instead of driving. The buyer pays for both flights — mine and the dog’s — on top of my fee.
“That’s crazy!” I said.
“I mean, they’re paying $5,000 for the dog,” the breeder said. “So this is nothing to them.”
I’m not sure why the price is so high. They don’t seem particularly rare. French bulldogs have been the most-registered purebred at the AKC for the last three years. A breeder explained that, since they have no hair, Sphynx cats are great for animal lovers with allergies. But Frenchies seem to be the opposite of hypoallergenic. They sit, snorting and huffing, in a cloud of allergens, like Charlie Brown’s friend Pigpen.
As it turned out, the toughest part of the job wasn’t the animals, who mostly slept — except for one kitten that howled all the way to New Orleans. I took it out of its carrier and held it. The cat nuzzled against me — while still howling as loud as ever. At one point, I called the breeder and said I thought something might be wrong.
“Just turn up the radio.”
No, the most frustrating part wasn’t the newborn animals who had never been in a car or mastered bathroom etiquette. It was the people spending what I paid for my first car to get a new pet DoorDashed to their house.
The New Orleans delivery was set for a Thursday, the only day I could get off work. On Monday the buyer texted, “Is there any way I could get him sooner — tomorrow maybe?”
I changed my schedule. She didn’t tip.
On the Boston puppy run, the flight times didn’t work for the buyer’s schedule, so I drove.
As instructed, I texted after making it past New York City to say I’d be there in a few hours — around 5 p.m. He immediately called me.
It’s easy work. I’ve driven farther for less. But it’s also disheartening. The message is clear: These tiny, ugly animals are immensely valuable. My time? Not so much.
Both, however, can be purchased for the right amount and displayed as status symbols. One by acquiring and showing it off. The other by disregarding it entirely.
