A Shallow Sigh

[Rachel and Mister Bingley]

Pitter patter, pitter patter, thunk!

"Hey sleepyhead, good morning," I called sweetly to Rachel who now slumped into a Queen Anne wingback chair looking exhausted.

"Did somebody stay up past reading time last night?"

"Nope," she replied briefly.

I went back to my reading.

After a bit of a pause she asked:"Mom, does that air purifier strip the CO2 molecules from the air?"

I looked up, blinked, looked over at this humming black box, which I rarely even give a thought to, and replied, "CO2?"

"(sigh) Carbon Dioxide, " she replied a bit sharply.

"I know what CO2 means!" I retorted defensively, "I just never really thought about the air purifier and CO2. No, I do not believe it strips the CO2 from the recirculated air. Why?"

"Well, I was just feeling kinda tired and I thought since I didn't stay up late last night that maybe the CO2 levels are getting too high because we are staying indoors and not opening our windows for a fresh supply of air."

"CO2 levels?" said Lydia, "Where'd you hear about that?"

"Oh, I was just reading about chemistry in one of my books," Rachel replied matter of factly.

At this point her dad entered the room and they began discussing the subject in detail. He assured her that the square footage of the house held sufficient levels of oxygen and he occasionally opens the door which allows fresh oxygen to enter.

When the discussion ended I asked Rachel, "How did you get to be so smart?"

"Easy," she said smugly, "I do math!"

And off she went!

I heard myself sigh! (I do that a lot lately.) I hope it was a shallow one.