dockheads by [phil h]
on Flickr

While the reader may have a fairly good idea of the tension between Peter and Mary, they don't have anything more than a couple of heads. How rude! Get them to interact with their surroundings, with their bodies neck down, but show - don't tell!

     Mary slammed the pot down onto the stove, just enough to make a clatter but not destroy the prized cookware.
     Peter spread his hands outward. "I don't see why we need to go over this again."
     "Because clearly," her lips moved but her jaw clenched as she dropped a cube of butter into the pot. "You didn't learn from the last twenty-odd times."
     Running his hand over his head as he let out a sigh, Peter rounded the island and slid onto a stool. He looked at her with puppy dog eyes. "Thanks for reminding me."
     The butter sizzled in the pan, spattering onto the freshly washed counter. Any minute, the stench of the burnt cube would tickle their noses. Mary stared at him, her face was placid. "Well, someone ought to."
     "Fine, then let that someone be somebody else," his lips curled up into a sneer.
     She turned off the burner with a flick of her wrist, set the pot onto a cool burner and pressed the overhead fan on. The sudden noise was distracting, enough to cause her to look up accusingly at the oven hood. Her shoulders rounded.
     "Look," her voice barely rose over the whoosh of the fan. "This isn't getting us anywhere."

     Peter stood back and squinted at the wall, then set his paint brush down across the can of latex 'Sunset'. "I don't see why we need to go over this again."
     "Because clearly," Marie replied as she tapped the wall where the covered up graffiti had been and the duller paint began. "You didn't learn from the last twenty-odd times."
     "Thanks for reminding me," Peter said in a distant voice as he scanned the road just beyond the store. When had the neighborhood changed? Where had the sundry of after church families in dresses and slacks gone, making way for the sloppy ass-sagging pants and butt cheek revealing hot pants take over?
     Marie dipped her own brush into the can and swiped it over the wall. "Well someone has to."
     "Fine." He dunked into the globulous paint, shook off the thickness and proceeded to drag the brush across Marie's pert butt. "Then let that someone be somebody else."
     Marie shrieked, then laughed as she wielded her brush as if it were a fencing sword. She swiped it at him, but he blocked, then parried.