Years ago, when I was young and didn’t know better, I walked out of a perfectly lovely date because my companion nervously jiggled in his seat, and I found it annoying. Even though we ended up dating for a while, we eventually broke up because he used too much aioli on his sandwiches, an obvious attempt to kill me.

“That’s extremely unreasonable,” a friend (who was correct) recently pointed out. “You find the strangest things so irritating.”

Curled up and purring contently on my lap during the conversation was my Katze, not batting an eyelash at the whole ordeal. She wasn’t fazed because she understood exactly why I flipped out:

Some things are bothersome for no good reason.

It’s fitting, really, that any pet of mine is equally as neurotic than I am. I suppose that having to deal with Katze’s particular set of lunacies is payback for all of the fights I picked over wiggles and condiments back in the day. If I’m given the side-eye for completing normal day-to-day activities, it’s certainly been a long time coming. It turns out that the apple really doesn’t fall too far from the awful, unstable tree, and here are some of the ways Katze judges me for my daily needs:

Drinking makes zero sense

I love making cocktails at home. Curling up on the couch at the end of the day with a drink in one hand and a snuggly little kitty cat on my lap makes me the happiest lady on the planet. And it makes Katze the second happiest lady on the planet — that is, until she curiously sticks her little button nosey right into my glass of … poison. Mama drinks poison. Get your cat face out of my poison.

Showers are for those who make poor decisions

For an animal who makes an awful stink when fresh water doesn’t magically appear in her bowl every, I don’t know, five seconds, Katze sure is afraid of the faucet. She also finds it really strange to take showers, as running water is the only thing more frightening than alcohol. Once I’ve lathered, rinsed, repeated, and thrown open the bathroom door where Katze is waiting, panic-stricken, she leaps into the bathroom to make sure that the water hasn’t murdered me. When she learns the water and I are chums, she flicks her tail and saunters away from that toxic relationship.

Makeup is weird — just … why?

Here are two fun facts that could be related: Katze’s brain is a lot smaller than a Silly Putty egg, and she believes that I’m super attractive. Good girl! Good kitty! She truly believes that my mean ol’ mug is good enough to face this wild world unarmed, and that the use of makeup is A) unnecessary and B) totally gross.

Much like how I once loitered in the bathroom doorway watching my mother brush on mascara and apply different eyeshadows, Katze plants herself firmly in the bathroom and watches my morning routine. Except that rather than thinking about how fun the ritual of makeup can be, Katze is completely and utterly horrified. Each time I pull out a different brush, she insists on smelling it, forgetting that when we did this little song and dance the previous day she hated it.

What is this witchcraft that smells so foreign and tastes so crummy when I lick Mom’s face? Why does she paint on a mask before she leaves the house? What’s she hiding? (Secrets, Katze. Shhh …)

Loving mothers don’t use vacuum cleaners

For the sake of this article, let’s bend reality for a moment and pretend like I clean my apartment daily. (Ha ha.) When I do, things sail along pretty smoothly until I pull out the vacuum cleaner. I know, I know. It’s loud and it’s scary. But I’m not sure why, after years of companionship, my cat believes I will suddenly snap and vacuum her into oblivion. It really pains me to see her shrink away from me — so, that’s it! I tried to clean but now I guess that I can’t! Sorry, visitors. I’d love to be able to welcome you into a sparkling home when you stop by, but even more so I would like for my cat to continue to love me. During visits you will politely pretend not to see that dust bunny over there.

What about you? Which of your actions does your cat find totally weird? Does your cat get judgey about these things?

Read more by Laura Jaye Cramer

• “Cats” Made Me Despise Musical Theater — And Love It
• How My Cat Reacted to Being Famous for a Day
• What Career Would Be Right for My Cat?
• 6 Things I Learned While Making My Cat Birthday Treats
• We Present 5 Cat Breeds as Revolutionary War Figures

About the author: Laura Jaye Cramer is a freelance writer and ballet dancer based out of San Francisco. When she isn’t busy tending to her sweet little cat baby, she can be found drooling over artifacts in a museum, building a shrine to Dolly Parton, or eating a trough of guacamole. Stalk her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.