I did it for the cat

One weekend in late November, I went out of town for a family birthday party. I came home on Sunday night to find a large circle of Lionel FasTrack track in our dining room. Seeing trains and equipment around our house is nothing new. My husband is an O-gauge collector and operator, and there’s something O gauge in nearly every room.

I must have had a puzzled look on my face, because he looked at me honestly and said, “It’s for the cat. He likes it.”

We’ve had cats for years, and have a kitten named Ringo (yes, we’re Beatles fans).

To prove his point, he fired up his Lionel Hiawatha Atlantic locomotive (class A) with K-Line Olympian Heavyweight Milwaukee Road cars around the room. Ringo watched with interest. Hubby claimed that Ringo even sat next to the transformer during operation, though I didn’t witness this.

A couple of weeks later, I found hubby in the basement, running trains on the O-gauge Halloween layout. Ringo was in hubby’s arms, watching intently.

“Ringo wanted to watch me run some trains.”

I guess I’m a sucker. Seeing your husband set up track and run a train to entertain one of your cats is sweet. Though I have to wonder if it’s just an excuse to run trains more often. . . not that I mind either way.

You can watch a video of Ringo watching trains on YouTube here.