I've (M-26) been working on a political campaign for nearly a year. It's pretty long days, maybe 18 hours a day and definitely 7 days a week. At some point our boss (M-28) became obsessed with the idea that we would at some point get recording devices planted on us in our office by the opposition. The boss talked about it constantly, always without evidence. So much so that the rest of the staff (F-40, F-40, F-26, M-25) would talk about his obsession when he wasn't around. Obviously, it would have been easy for us to get on board with this had there been some semblance of guidance on what specifically to be on the outlook for rather than just random assertions, but there was nothing except the vague theory. 




Also two particularly random things happened in the months prior to the election. First, two months prior to the election someone, purporting to be a supporter, came by and said they had two (extremely nice and extremely comfortable) matching leather sofas that they were getting rid of that they wanted to know if they could give to us as a donation to our office seating area. We accepted but the boss spent days talking about how we had to get rid of them because they might contain recording devices built into them. Secondly, on the candidate's birthday (he was almost never physically present in our office) someone(s?) separately sent an edible arrangement and some flowers to our office without cards. Boss predictably flipped out made us call to find out whom they were from but the companies refused to tell us as it was against policy. These are legit nationally known companies involved and there was a very slim chance that they'd be involved in an illegal campaign bugging operation. But again they had to be dumped into the trash because... 




He insisted that he was going to call the police and have them do a full investigation. He never followed through but this was getting ridiculous. 




A few days after a successful primary election was the boss' birthday. I stopped off at a drug store bought a large teddy bear and tied a bunch of balloons to its hand and a bow around its neck. The pièce de résistance was the two inch wire I had repurposed from a pair of ear buds and superglued to the neck of the bear and had hidden, poorly, behind the ribbon. I left it at the front desk and told everyone in the office what was up and got them on the same page that it had been delivered that very morning without a card. Everyone in the office was fully aware that this was a prank. He flipped out exactly as predicted immediately. And *then* noticed the wire sticking out and was instantly at an 11 for all of about 3 minutes before I let him in on the joke.




I was and had always planned to be there to supervise the entire prank and would have obviously never let it get to the point where he actually called the police. He threw the dumb bear at me sort of chuckled. But, he has stopped bringing up the stupid "recordings" paranoia for the rest of the campaign.




I already sorta think I know what the answer is, but still, AITA?




TL;DR Is it sometimes okay to unstick your boss from something they keep harping on with a lite prank? Assume I *cannot* be fired.