Here's one I did that a friend is still angry about. A few years ago, when the price of oil went negative, I told him I had a good deal on a used fuel oil truck. I pretended to offer him to go into partnership with me on the truck. I don't remember the numbers. I said I would park it in the woods behind my house and sell the oil when the price spiked. That of course would be really hard to do, for so many reasons, but he didn't know that. He refused because he didn't have any disposable income. Then I made up this whole scenario when the price started to climb back, bragging about my profits. Kind of dumb joke, but it worked on him.