My son and I have been playing this silly game and it’s hilarious

I don’t know if this game has a name.

We started last night and it escalated quickly.

I arrived in Florida from California, my wife met me at the airport Fort in Lauderdale, we drove home and went straight to dinner — it was my Mom’s sixty third birthday.

On our back home after the restaruant, my fifteen year old son Valentin asked from the back row of the car:

“Papa”

“What?”

“Nothing”

“It’s some kind of a new game”, my Mom clarified.

“Yes, to get someome’s attention only to reply “nothing”.

I digested this idea and I fired my first shot just a couple of minutes later, in a creative way.

“Did Natasha [my wife] told you about what happened to Gosha in DC [referring my my wife’s in-laws; last week they visited their friend in Washington DC; Gosha is Valentin’s cousin]”, I asked directing my question at everyone in the car.

“What happened?”, Valentin was the one to react, intrigued.

“Nothing.”

“Good one! This was really good, I have to give your credit”

“Can you pass me”, I asked Valentin stretching my hand without specifying what to pass. I was the one driving.

“What?”

“Nothing”

I was on fire.

“5:1 to me ”, I said.

Then Valentin got me, then I got him

We were laughing and having great fun.

“Still these pranks aren’t as good as Max’s last year” [Max is Valentin’s older brother]

“What prank?”

“None”

And so it continued last night and today.

It’s now reached the point when we’re afraid to say anything, focusing intensely on avoiding being tricked. It’s a problem because there are situations when you need to have a serious exchange. But when you are tricking, you’re sounding really serious too. So it becomes impossible to differentiate.

You get tricked while discussing the actual game. Today we finally relaxed and laughed about our game. Then Valentin got me: