Sigh

“Keep an eye out for a parking spot” Nina said to her fifteen year old daughter sitting in the passenger seat, as she tried to watch the traffic streaming all around her and scan the curbs for movement at the same time.
She got no response.

Glancing over Nina sighed and reaching out pulled the nearest headphone cord out of her daughter’s ear.
“Hey” Laura yelled, angry at the interruption to her listening.
 “Watch for a parking spot” Nina repeated with as much patience as she could muster.
“Why” Laura asked “I don’t even want to go.”

Sighing loudly this time, her anger peeking through, Nina said “you’ve made that abundantly clear. Stupid me, I thought you were old enough now to be able to do something for someone else without complaining.”
Laura glared at her mother.
“It’s not going to kill you, you know” Nina said.

“You sure about that? I read on facebook the other day about someone dying of boredom.”
Nina rolled her eyes as she continued scanning the streets for a spot to park, craning her neck to look along the other side of the road “you can’t believe everything you read you know?” she said “particularly if it’s on facebook.”
Laura scowled “how would you know? You don’t even go on it.”
“You sure about that?” she said in a parody of her daughter’s words. And as an indicator went on, on a car in a spot just in front of her, she turned and smiled at her “here we go.”
“Oh yay” Laura said, sarcasm dripping from her words as she put her ear piece back in and turned away to look out the window.
And in what felt like a perpetual expression of late when she was dealing with Laura, Nina sighed and parked the car.