When I was 10 years-old, I tried to convince a teenage neighbor that I was one audition away from nailing the part of Anthony Michael Hall's character in Sixteen Candles. I had some elaborate story about a brief trip to New York City and being discovered on the streets while buying a hot dog. I said I didn't get the part because they wanted somebody with blonde hair. But, I told him, they were considering me for the sequels to possibly play his little brother. My neighbor laughed at me and accused me of lying. I told him that he could ask my parents or better yet, wait for the sequel to come out next summer.

Instead, he put me in a headlock and refused to let go until I told the truth.

This is my earliest memory of the first of many, many embellishments (or lies, if you want to be negative) I would go on to tell in my life. Some of them have survived so long that they have become, in my mind, the absolute truth.

Many people still consider me a compulsive liar. This is fine -- there are worse things to be called. I just consider it honing my creative skills -- working on my game, so to speak. Sometimes I do it to be witty, although most of the time it is probably completely inappropriate.

For example, my eye color. I have both blue and brown color in each eye and when people take notice of this I have a few stock responses like "My mother had sex with a husky" or "I lost my eyes in a fencing duel when I was five. The ones I'm wearing are made out of glass and were designed by renowned cinematic creature creator Rick Baker," and most commonly, "I have know idea what your talking about," after which I run to the mirror and scream.

It's no fun to just say, "I was born with them."

I have a 10-year high school reunion coming up soon and I am already plotting my make-believe job. Should I be a spot-welder? A taxidermist? A mattress salesman? Unfortunately, I used the mattress salesman story at the 5-year reunion and ended up getting cornered into a conversation with a legitimate salesperson about our different approaches to new clients. That wasn't very fun.

Usually people know I'm kidding, but sometimes they don't. I worked at a restaurant and convinced half of the wait staff that I was dating a girl with a wooden leg. I told this elaborate story about how "Mindy" was mangled by a tractor when she was very young and never had the money to pay for a prosthetic. I said I waited tables at nights as an extra job to help pay for her new leg.

It only takes one person to believe these stories. Once you have one, I pile it on just to see how far I can go.

I was very close to paying a girl to walk into the restaurant wearing a fake wooden leg.

Girlfriends have actually been put through far worse and more embarrassing situations. I have convinced one girlfriend that after I went to a hypnotist to quit smoking that anytime I had the urge to smoke she was to give me a banana. Nevertheless, for about a week after the session anytime, I'd say "God, I need a cigarette," she'd offer to run to the store to get a banana. I eventually let her off the hook when she started carrying one in her purse "just in case you get the urge." I also told convinced my former live-in girlfriend that a friend of mine who was coming to visit was terrified of mini-muffins. She'd spent the whole weekend shopping, stocking up food for the weekend, and I told her she needed to get rid of the mini-muffins. I had some story about the friend being afraid of small pastries because of the movie "Young Sherlock Holmes". I told her that he would probably flip out if he saw the muffins. "Jeez, I'm sorry. I bought mini bagels too? Are they okay?" Of course they weren't. So she hid both the mini-muffins and the tiny bagels at the top of the cupboard for the weekend.

Unfortunately, my mother has been a victim of these stories many, many times. My father, another natural story teller, would willingly play along. When we watched sporting events, my mother would ask inquisitive sports-related questions, which we usually answer and then go off onto an amusing, but thoroughly absurd anecdote. She wouldn't know where the truth stopped and the fiction began.

"Now, that Toni Kukoc is a really handsome man. Who did he play for originally?" she'd ask.

We would start off telling the truth and then stretch it -- enormously.

"It's amazing he can still play after the operation," I'd say.

"Yeah, He was never supposed to play again," my father would add.

"What happened to him?" my mother asked.

From there we'd explain how Toni Kukoc was originally drafted by the WNBA from Croatia. He realized he could make more money as a man so opted for a sex change operation and for the past two years has been rehabbing to become a legitimate NBA player.

"You can't even see the scars," I'd say.

"It's amazing," my father would chime in.

My mother would then usually leave the room and call us both shitheads.

It became funnier when she wouldn't believe things that actually are true. She still finds it hard to believe there are sports teams nicknamed the Mighty Ducks and the Raptors -- I mean who would name a team something so silly? And as much as it's widely known in the sports community, she finds it impossible that ex-Anaheim Angel Jim Abbot was a very successful pitcher who was missing an arm.

"So, how would he catch the ball, then?"

"He moves his glove to his stub hand right after his delivery."

"You're a shithead."

At least she didn't put me in a headlock.