The following things are not relaxing at all:

• Listening to my mother yell at the cat because he’s scratching on the couch
• The follow-up conversations in which she attempts to engage the cat in a debate about why he feels the need to scratch the couch
• .. using baby talk
• And repeating herself over and over and over and over and over and over because the cat is not answering one way or another about why he is scratching on the couch
• Taking a relaxing hot bath with mom yelling at me every two minutes to make sure I’m not dead
• Unsalted potato chips
• Putting eyedrops in someone else’s eye

i'm *trying*