Here's a fun idea for grossing our your friends that's really more of a trick than a recipe. It will work especially well if you have a cat-or if your friend thinks you have a cat.

Here's what you'll need:

• a brand new, washed-clean cat-litter pan (or something clean that looks like one)
• a brand new, washed-clean cat-litter scoop
• a large box of one of those fiber cereals that look a lot like cat litter (you know the ones I mean)
• maybe some Tootsie Rolls® just for fun I'm guessing right now that you can see this coming, but I'll go ahead and set it up anyway.

Start out by filling your clean (make sure!) cat litter pan (or equivalent) with the cat litter-like fiber cereal.

You can add to the effect by melting a few Tootsie Rolls® in the microwave scooping them into the pan with the cereal, mostly intact.

The next part is tricky.

When a friend is over, get him or her to make a deal that if you can say the whole alphabet in less than three seconds, he or she has to eat cat litter. If you can't do it, you have to eat it. (This will work better if it's very late at night and you're both feeling a little goofy.)

If your friend agrees, make sure you lose.

Act a little disappointed, but say a deal is a deal. Grab a bowl from the cupboard, walk to the cat litter, pick up the clean scoop (make sure!), and scoop some in. If you went with the Tootsies®, make sure you get one of those too.

Walk back to the kitchen, add a little milk, grab a spoon, and start chomping. If this doesn't gross your friend out, not much will. Two words of caution.

One, make sure your cat (if you have one) never gets anywhere near your fake pan of cat litter. Two, you may find that you'd actually enjoy cat litter more than some of the fiber cereals out there. But it will be worth it.

Odd Biblical Tie-in:

An occasional practical joke is one thing, but Proverbs 6:12-15 says that a person who regularly deceives people will be destroyed. When you play a friendly joke, you do carry out a short-term deception. But you always end a joke by making sure your friend knows the truth and hasn't been hurt in any way.

At least, if you're choosing to be kind and loving you do that. A practical joke should always be about laughing together-not laughing at someone (unless it's yourself).

Usually, when we really set out to deceive people, there's nothing funny about it. We're hoping to tell a convincing lie in order to save ourselves from trouble or embarrassment. Maybe we want to make ourselves look better or avoid an unpleasant moment. However you look at it, it's always about us-and it's always wrong.

Verses 16-19 of that same chapter in Proverbs states that of the seven things God hates, two of them are lying. God hates all sin. In this passage, God hates lying twice.

Any time you have a choice between telling a lie and telling the painful truth, the truth is the right choice. And it's the one God wants you to make. No doubt about it.

But go ahead and have fun grossing out your friends. And don't forget to offer them some litter.

I DARE YOU.