Lottery win
About 6 or 7 years ago, my partner and I decided to pull the old lottery win April Fool on my step daughters. Not thinking for one minute that any of them would be daft enough to fall for it.

This basically involved Mrs Bort reading the numbers from our computer screen, whilst I call on all my Am dram experience to embellish the lie with some excitement along the way. Once all the numbers had been read out, we jigged around the house whooping with delight and watching in amusement as 3 of the 4 daughters saw straight through the ruse, and asked us to go back to bed. The one remaining daughter, the eldest ironically, believed every word of it.

As a bit of background to this I should say that the elder 2 girls lost their father when they were 6 and 7 respectively. His death had affected them both terribly at the time, but in the intervening ten years or so, careful work by their mum had put them back on track.

Maybe it was a lingering rawness that had made the eldest burst in to tears and exclaim aloud that at last things were going right for us for a change. Her sobs and the period spent hugging her mum made me feel like the biggest tool in the box, and although her mum had been a willing accomplice to the gag, i knew that it would be up to me to extinguish these flames.

Luckily she took it well, or at least she seemed to, but I will never do anything like it again.

Length - around 10 minutes all told, not traditionally long, but put into context, a fucking lifetime.
(Ovon Bort Wondering why he chose this username, since 1999, Mon 12 Mar 2012, 12:06, 7 replies)

This

( The Scrunt Wants a Dozen Pints, Mon 12 Mar 2012, 13:12, closed)

A click...
...for this weeks winner.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Mon 12 Mar 2012, 14:03, closed)

If anything could possibly go wrong in a prank like that
it couldnt be much worse than this.

click
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Mon 12 Mar 2012, 16:15, closed)

It could
only be that, no?

It's a real cringer.
(username failed moderation, Mon 12 Mar 2012, 16:21, closed)

Careful work by their mum
or, more plausibly, the fact that people can, and almost always do, get over that sort of thing quite straightforwardly.
(Star Wars Starwarsy McStarwars Face, Tue 13 Mar 2012, 13:54, closed)

Yes of course
They can, but The eldest was particularly hard hit, and their mum did do some great work with her. She's still not entirely ok, but that isn't really the main thrust of the story anyway.
(Ovon Bort Wondering why he chose this username, since 1999, Tue 13 Mar 2012, 14:14, closed)

Ouch!
*click*
( splorp ®, Tue 13 Mar 2012, 16:05, closed)