I am now sitting at the foot of her bed, made of mahogany, in her room, decorated with her favourite boy band, in her house, that smelled of freshly baked cinnamons.

My cheesy Menudo watch says that I have been here for about, oh maybe five minutes with barely an acknowledgment. So my mind tries to do the thing they call telepathy and beckon Lisa to say "No!" to whoever is on the other end of the line and put down the phone. But I always know that this or any attempt will be futile. No surprise there.

Probably it doesn't work for selfish people. But I contend that everyone is selfish in some varying degree: some are selfish and others are shellfish—ha, get it, shellfish? Admit it and do not say, "No." Even if you did, everyone is just is, because I say so.

I think I'm getting itchy. And it's all because of these matted hairs on the carpet. How many strands are there? I could not count very well. I'm terrible with numbers.

Wait. Is Lisa losing her hair? Must be all that twirling of her fingers around them. But what is taking her so long on the goddamn phone? Fifteen minutes have probably gone by now.

This is getting uncomfortable, but I couldn't very well sit on her bed without her permission, although I'm supposed to be her best friend. Unless I am rude, I would have already done so. But I would have disrespected her forty-five centimetres of personal space for the sake of my comfort. But then again I am not --- rude, I mean, but still itching.

Oh well. I have too much respect for plastic anyway, so I couldn't sit on her couch, or her love seat, or her wicker chair—why does she have to cover everything with plastic? As if the domestic help doesn't clean her furniture three times a day. Thank God, she's vain and won't dare get prescription eye-glasses or else she'll freak out at the tiny specks of dust that drop in every minuscule second of the day.

What is taking her so long? I'm pretty sure she's not talking to the plumber whose ass cracks are notoriously showing. She would not even look at his face when he comes by to service their constantly clogging toilet. Lisa was pretty sure that somebody is deliberately dropping large things inside, just an excuse to have Plumber Jack over to visit. Her mother probably throwing in the extra-large tampon.

God! I do not need this waste of time, sitting here doing nothing but wait. I could already have done my hair in this length of time. You know maybe even get a perm, or maybe highlights --- ooooh, that would make Lisa jealous!

What to do? What to do? Oh well, there's her music rack. I could look over what new CDs she bought since the last time I popped over. Let's see. There's some Folktronica, some Wizard Rock, some types of punk (Cowpunk, Gypsy Punk) and various types of cores (Crabcore, Mathcore, Crunkcore). But her favourite must be this CD that says: "Lisa's most favourite Funeral dance mixes of all time."

Oh my Lord! It's already half an hour and Lisa barely glanced at me! Well, there is her diary. I could just read it without her knowledge even though she had told me three billion times not to look at it. Well, isn't this a passive-aggressive way of advertising? You know, like when your mother tells you NOT to touch the stove because it is hot but you do it anyway out of curiosity to see if it really is? Well, I have that kind of curiosity.

Besides, would you tell someone where you hide your diary or lay it out in places to make sure that people can find it easily when you really, really, really do not want them to peek at it? That is the object of titillation, isn't it? It's like when Lisa wears a micro-monokini and says that she is too shy to take it off. Can't she see she's practically naked? Demure my foot!

So Lisa said before that the reason she really, really, really did not want anybody to read because it was too cringe-worthy. That what she had written there mostly she hadn't meant half of the time, the half that spewed hatred towards other people. And the other half was too cheesy, the half that dreamed of fairy tale weddings with most of the football team.

Anyway, as I flip through the pages of her diary full of "I'm sooo over this, I'm sooo in love with that," she reminds me that I could never be Lisa. I am only just her best friend and not her clone. Besides, who am I kidding? I never want to become a caricature like Lisa, with her squeaky voice and her phony laugh. Just the thought of it makes me shudder.

Ah, and there is also Lisa's air giggle. Air giggling is Lisa's Morse code of saying "No" because she rarely uses that world, like how she doesn't say "Sorry." She also uses air giggle to let others know she's bored, and she wants to end the conversation but her hints are so subtle that people usually don't get them.

Which probably means she will be on the phone for another half hour or so. So I just look at the things tacked on her corkboard: there's a newspaper clipping of Dear Abby dishing out advice on how not to be a pushover (which I probably should learn from); a personal ad looking for "that girl with brown hair and blue eyes riding the train station on Wednesday, July 4th"; some pictures of cows (Lisa wants to be a farm girl but couldn't even dirty her hands); and there's the ugly picture of her mother.

Why Lisa put that up was still a mystery to me: in the photograph, her mother could be seen standing rigidly with an odd smile plastered on her face. It is very similar to Lisa's smile, which is a cross between a smirk and a pitiful pout. I call it the "Lisa look."

The look that makes me confused, not knowing whether to smother her with a pillow or to smack her with a cucumber. And then when Lisa realizes that you look like you want to do either of those, her face illuminates with sparkling drops of sweat that you might think she's sick or dying.

But I assure you she's not... dying that is, as I assure those who look at Lisa and coo and say "awwww, she's so cute" as if she's a newborn that's being passed around doting relatives. No, she's not THAT cute.

Waiting stinks. You know what else stinks? Her mother who didn't even offer me something to drink. I told Lisa before that her mother's attitude stinks and advised her to buy her mother a boatload of "Secret." Lisa had refused and said that her mother was just too picky.

As in her mother does not want Lisa to have friends who just hang around and wait for Lisa to borrow something --- like Lisa's CDs, Lisa's money, Lisa's clothes. Her mother said that this is because the CDs, the money, the clothes are shared among the four of them—the mother, the brother, the father, and Lisa.

They improvise to cut costs. So instead of buying four wardrobes of ten pieces of cheap clothing per wardrobe, they would rather buy twenty branded outfits so they can flaunt their non-existent wealth.

What's the big deal of borrowing clothes anyway? They already share each other's so why not admit another member? It just doesn't make sense. Anyway, her mother doesn't like it. So let's just say her mother and I have irreconcilable differences.

I'm getting mad because an hour has passed and I don't think my watch tells lies. I'm getting impatient so I fling the doors of her closet open to check what I can salvage.

There's that hot pink slinkini that will probably only cover the moles on my breasts. There's that leopard print dress that her mother got at a thrift shop. There's that pair of boxers worn by her boyfriend on their first night together. There's that "slong-leeves" because Lisa thought saying "long-sleeves" is passe.

Is there anything decent? Oh well, I'll probably take this torn "Chuck Berry" concert T-shirt because it's at least something. And if her mother comes and berates me, I could just remind her that Lisa won't be too happy if she sees us fight.

But then, in a sharp trilling voice, her mother would say, "Lisa doesn't care!" and at this point, I do agree with her.