Here's a selection from my latest work, "Tales From the Master of Storytelling: Volume II (Ultimate Edition)," which hits shelves in mid-August. The names of those involved have been changed to protect their identity. Enjoy:

Have you ever drank pee before? Fat Travis* has.

You know how sometimes people will give a really big guy a nickname like "Tiny" to be ironical? Well, that wasn't the case with Fat Travis. He was actually fat. Hence the name.

It's not that anybody had a problem with him being fat (although, in retrospect, it was kind of funny). It was more that he was a pathological liar. He claimed to be the head chef of a local steakhouse and would sometimes answer his phone when there was nobody on the other line. One time when he answered a fake phone call, it rang for real while he was supposedly talking to somebody. He proceeded to look at his phone as though there was something wrong with it and he couldn't understand what was happening. Not fooling anyone, Fat Travis.

He might have been a decent kid had he not lied. But instead, he lied about everything.

With time running out in the second semester of our senior year, a friend of mine decided to play a prank on him. He took a shotglass into the bathroom with him and peed in it. Several others among us had shotglasses that contained beer, not pee. We did a toast and all acted like it was the nastiest shot in the world. It was a fine piece of acting by all involved. Except for Fat Travis. Since he was drinking pee, it didn't take a whole lot of acting on his part to convince people that he had just taken a bad shot. In the end, everyone laughed about it. Except for Fat Travis, that is, who we never told.

* His real name was Fat Taylor.