We’d just move the aid station somewhere else, they’d find us eventually. 
Trust us, it’d work.
If you were cruel, you’d put it on a flatbed and gradually move it away as they approached.
We also considered moving the entire aid station to the other end of the out-and-back, so they would get a moment of confusion like “Didn’t I just leave all these people 7.5 miles ago?”
This reminds of the MIT pranks. Every year the senior class plans a prank. One year, they figured out how to get into the Harvard stadium a month before the home opener. Every day for that month, they spread bird seed at the 50 yard line and blew a loud referee’s whistle. They were soon getting an enormous influx of birds as soon as they blew the whistle. Than came the opening game…
Now that’s funny.
My girlfriend and I, ages ago - probably 20 years - were unhappy with graffiti artist simply tagging walls with their name. I have no issue with actual artists making art; I like it, but tagging is lazy. (I moved in groups who did tagging, rather than art)
Our solution: we bought pink felt, thick white thread, some curved carpeting needles and some velcro.
When I went out drinking I would sew cartoon-like “plasters” out of the above (think Tank Girl - always has a couple of plasters), and then when we went to nightclubs or open-air parties, in the crowd, tag people with a plaster.
This is a hard one to explain, but:
There were a group of car racers who would regularly play pranks on the volunteers at the track and the volunteers would, of course, return the favor. My favorite prank one one where they attempted to prank the people who worked in Timing & Scoring (hereafter called T&S). These volunteers would time the laps of the cars with stopwatches (done electronically now) and track who is in which place on each lap of the race (called scoring).
During a memorable qualifying session for a race, all the cars in this group came past Timing & Scoring with the same car number, “1”, on each car. The only way the volunteers could tell them apart was due to their experience. Joe’s red car was always no. 18, Vern’s red and yellow car was no 11, etc.
The result of all the cars having the same number was pandemonium, of course. But the intelligent folks of T&S got them all figured out within the first two laps or so and so the timing charts were correct. Now, as some of you know, your qualifying time sets the order of the cars for the race. The fastest car is at the front and the slowest car is at the back of the pack of cars when they start the race. This “starting grid” is published 30 minutes after the qualifying session ends.
Back in the old days of course, no one could get the results instantly as they could not be available online as there was no such thing yet. Instead, T&S would send a person with the grid over to the spot where drivers wait for the results to be posted.
Here came the person with the grid. Everyone backed up to allow said person to post the final grid up on the board. Once posted, they all crowded in for a look. Car No. 1 was in every single position on the grid.
Score a huge win for the volunteers! They returned the prank with no extra effort required.
Many years ago I “kidnapped” a relative’s plastic cow from their front lawn manger scene on New Year’s Eve. I left a ransom note on the front door, complete with cut-out letters from magazines.
The cow had removable ears, so a month or so later I mailed one of them back to the owner along with a photo of the cow with a bandaged earhole with ketchup-blood on the bandage.
Periodically, they would receive emailed letters from faraway places. I enlisted friends and co-workers (ok, cow-orkers) to mail letters or postcards from wherever they were vacationing. They received letters from Italy, Mexico, Portugal, and Poland, along with a few U.S. cities.
I ended up keeping the cow for an entire year. I would see them regularly, and when they talked about the cow, it was clear that I was a suspect, but they had others in mind as well, so they never were quite certain.
Once the jig was up, there was even a write-up in the local paper, with a photo of us and the now safe at home wayward cow.
mmm
How moooving!
Volunteering at the recycling center, it broke my bibliophile heart to destroy old books people dropped off, but it gave me an idea. I quietly filched one volume of The World Book Encyclopedia destined for the bin.
Understand that The World Book was our go-to reference growing up. Countless school reports were based on that set, and many hours were passed lying on the living room rug and browsing its pages. It was a CHERISHED part of the household.
A trip to visit family happened to include April 1. My brother and I agreed in advance to “argue” about a point of geography during dinner and planned for him to be mistaken ( a rare event indeed!)
I made a show of fetching the appropriate volume (really my salvaged one) and “proving my point.” My brother admitted his “error,” and I exultantly ripped the relevant page out to give to him.
Horror warred with disbelief on the faces of all the family. The cries of dismay were many and loud. Even when I (eventually) explained, it still took long minutes for them to calm down.
The prank is still talked about 20 years later.
Hire a bunch of actors to lay in wait for the mark at various points on his daily routine to as he come’s up to them greet him by name. “Hi, Bill!” “Morning, Bill!”, “Hey Bill, how’s it going?” If he confronts any of them they make up a vague story about how they used to have a class with him in College, or they met as some party or something.
A slightly more surreal twist would be if his names not Bill.
With deep fakes of the original cast where needed (really, just young Josh).
THEN…
…dub it to VHS (get a beat up colored plastic case), and make up authentic-looking labels and a box.
THEN…
… Label it as “Exclusive Belgian Version for Broadcast on TV Brussels Channel Two Only! (English Language Version)”
BONUS…
… if you filmed your ending in Flemish.
Or filmed random words so the mouths didn’t match the English dialog.
Back when I was telecommuting with a portable Compaq, I was communicating with a co-worker using that old mainframe-base “email.” PROFS? Anyway, I said my sister was watching a replay of the previous night’s Westminster Dog Show competition that she hadn’t seen. My friend had seen it and asked which group was being judged. I said the hounds, and he said the basset hound had won. So, I walked out to the living room and watched a few minutes and said that I thought the basset hound would win the group. My sister insisted it would one of two other breeds, and the commentators were not big on the basset hound either, and she was mocking me heartily. The basset hound, ha!
Well, when they announced the basset hound had won, she had a meltdown and started cussing me and yelling about the f**king basset hound. She was so incensed I had to admit I cheated. We’d bet a dinner on it, but I paid for her dinner instead. It was so funny it was worth it.
There was one incident (possibly a commercial?) where a window of an office was replaced with a video screen showing the same scene, and someone was invited in for a fake job interview, and meanwhile the ‘window’ behind the interviewer was showing some huge disaster overtaking the city.
I’d like to do something similar, but on a larger, much more personalized scale. Let’s say the marks are going to another country for a week’s holiday. We set things up so that the news there starts showing, in passing, some weird event surrounding, but not harming, their house. Let’s say it’s giant mushrooms in rain boots dancing around.
Their friends are in on the prank, and mention the event if contacted and asked. There’s a developing Wiki page on it. But nobody in the holiday destination covers it deeply, and it’s a little hard to find info on it. After all, this is a different country. Printed newspapers available in the hotel mention it briefly. It’s in the ‘amusing trivia story’ section on the cable news, but always after things like celebrity gossip. Major news sites online might mention it… or not. (It’s hard enough to get them to mention your entire city, let alone local events from one neighbourhood …)
Meanwhile people around them start making passing references to it in conversation:
“…and Amir was running around like a mushroom in rain boots, but we got him calmed down…”
“Ed, you got that umbrella up over the patio?” “Yep, did it this morning! Snug as a mushroom in rain boots…”
Then a little girl walks past wearing a shirt with dancing mushrooms in rain boots… and the house the mushrooms are dancing around looks very familiar.
I’m thinking of how, in the beginning of Shaun of the Dead, the zombie apocalypse is developing, but it’s only shown by passing background events.
Eventually the marks return home. They’re on one of those discount airlines, so there’s no news or internet access while they’re in the air. When they land, there is absolutely no trace of anything about dancing mushrooms anywhere. Their friends meet them, but act confused when they mention dancing mushrooms. The little girl and her family walk past; she’s wearing the same recognizable shirt, but on closer inspection it’s pandas in rain boots dancing around a gazebo.
They get home. No trace of dancing mushrooms…
What do you mean, ‘plasters’? That term makes me think of plaster casts. Do you mean something like a bandaid-type bandage, or a fabric patch?
So, simply remove it.
A band-aid in American English, I suppose.
Somewhat enlarged and exaggerated for comedic effect, about 30% larger than usual.
Yes, what Yanks call a band-aid, English call a sticking plaster.
Step One: Initiate a conversation with a friend on a subject they’re passionate about. State an incorrect fact that you’re sure they’ll correct you about. After the correction, insist you’re right and make a bet of a lottery ticket for the person who has the fact correct. After losing the bet, promise the friend you’ll buy them a ticket before the next lottery.
Step Two: Before the next lottery, buy one ticket for every lottery number combination.
Step Three: The day after the lottery drop off the winning ticket to the friend and wish them luck. Leave without saying anything else.
Absolutely the best answer to the constraints of the thread title!