As I fumbled through the nest in which my son sleeps, the tangle of pillows and blankets, guitar picks and food wrappers, I found further proof that my son is, indeed, a Coyle: two books that had been missing from the stack of books that I keep next to my bed.

My father, who died almost three years before my son was born, was notorious for taking books, particularly those that someone else was in the process of reading. And while we wandered around the house, scratching our heads, wondering where we’d laid down our books, my father would, under the cover of darkness, read them and then stealthily return them to the very place from which he’d originally swiped them. He’d give himself up, though, when we’d mention the books we were just about to finish, when he’d provide the details that lay in the final pages. He absolutely delighted in ruining books for us. It became, in fact, one of the sick Coyle games that we all grew to love—who could finish a book before Dad snatched it. Now it seems as though this may be a game for which my son is developing an interest.

Another Coyle family favorite at which my son is displaying amazing natural talents is the game whereby the object is to scare the holy bejesus out of one’s unsuspecting loved ones. My son’s knack for the game is uncanny, especially given that he was never able to witness the game being played by three world-class talents: my brother, my father, and myself. Moreover, without formal lessons of any sort, my son has already mastered the rules and the tactics of this sport requiring the greatest of skills.

This morning, for instance, as he was sitting at the computer, I jumped through the doorway and shouted “BOO!” (#1—jumping from darkened doorways, whether the subject is passing by them or is stationary in the room, is a prime technique; without giving away all the secrets of the game, another top-rate tactic is to startle someone as they are leaving the restroom, a maneuver that is so surprisingly effective because the subject, having just relieved themselves, is fairly relaxed and therefore, unsuspecting; furthermore, having just left the restroom, the subject is also less likely to soil their undergarments; #2—shouting “BOO” is superfluous to the surprise itself, but is an obvious display of the talents of a more highly-skilled player, mostly because, by virtue of using such a infantile and sophomoric phrase, one is able to not only scare the subject, but insult them as well.)

My son, in spite of the fact that he jumped in his chair, banging his knees against the desk, and in spite of the fact that the hair on his arms was so visibly standing upright, laughed and said, “You didn’t scare me.” (#3—Never, ever admit to having been frightened, no matter what the visible and obvious proof otherwise.)

At that point, I countered, “You just shit your pants for no reason?” (#4—Always taunt your victim, reminding them that they have just been, in fact, your victim. This is also the time at which a victory lap is appropriate, one where you high-five your invisible partner in the sky and shout things like, “yeah, baby” as you dance and twirl in circles.)

He smiled and said, “Lady, that’s it—I’ve had it with you,” and chased me, caught me, and punched me repeatedly in my upper arms. (#5—Physically punish the person who has scared you in an effort to show that, while they may dominate you in respect to having just scared you, you can still make them pay a price for such.)

As he pounded away (and I fretted about the bruises that might result from such), I laughed and said, “This won’t change the fact that I…GOT…YOU…GOOD!” (#6—Never, ever let them forget that you’ve totally humiliated them.)

He eventually stopped the physical abuse and, as we both scrabbled to our feet, he uttered the phrase that absolutely cuts to the core of this game: “Expect it when you least expect it, Lady.”

My son has added a new twist here and there, with the most noticeable one being the tactic of creating the illusion of being totally inept at playing the game, stomping around, hiding quite conspicuously (positioning oneself in an only partially hidden way and coughing and sniffing, making sufficient noise as to call attention to oneself), and then stepping out casually into the open and saying, with little emotion….”boo.” From that point, the subject, in a reversal of the traditional rules, is to bend over at the waist whilst clutching at their mid-section with both arms, affecting a loud but insincere laugh, and say, “Man—you are GOOD at this—ooohhhhh—you REALLY got me this time.”

I’m not sure that my father would approve of this perversion of the game. And I am fairly certain that he would regret the loss of the unspoken rule that the game was absolutely off-limits after the subject had recently watched a spooky movie.

My brother and I, though, admittedly altered the game at times, changes that my father absolutely abhorred. The one that was the most effective was the one where I’d claim to have heard something outside the front window and my unsuspecting father would step outside, only to be terrorized by my brother, who’d be hiding in the bushes next to the front porch. This was an absolute classic, one my brother and I perfected by making our plans before he left for his dates in the evening. I’d see the headlights of his car as he’d pull in the driveway and give him sufficient time to assume the position, all without my father having any knowledge that my brother, in fact, had returned home.

Eventually, however, my father did catch on, so we had to amend that tactic as well. Being Coyles, though, we were instantly able to replace one classic with another.

One evening, as the three of us were watching a movie, I claimed to have heard something outside the front window. My father quickly took an inventory of those present and, having established that one of us was unlikely to be awaiting him outside, he went to the door to check out the alleged suspicious noise.

Now anyone who knew my family knew that my father, invariably, began to strip out of his clothes as he walked through the front door. His suitcoat was usually on the back of a dining room chair, his paints and shirt were hung over the arm of the rocking chair, his tie was folded on top of the television, his socks were neatly tucked away in his shoes under the coffee table, thereby leaving my father wearing nothing but that which became his uniform about the house: his boxers. That said, the night that we goaded my father to go check out the noise, he went outside in his underwear.

The second he stepped outside, my brother and I launched from the sofa, my brother slamming shut the door and twisting the lock, while I commandeered the light switch that controlled the lamppost at the end of our driveway as well as the light on our front porch. I flickered the light off and on in hopes of attracting attention to my barely-clothed father, while my brother pushed against the door, just in case the lock proved to be insufficient in preventing my father from coming back into the house.

We had surmised that my father would crouch and quietly beg to be let back in, hoping to minimize the attention cast upon him. But the important detail that we’d failed to consider was that we were not dealing with someone who was reasonably embarrassed and who acted in a predictable fashion; instead, we were dealing with our father. That said, after he screamed through the door at us, telling us that we were, indeed, not his children, nor would we survive the evening (although his exact words were far more erudite and inappropriate), he became uncharacteristically quiet. My brother and I, baffled, whispered our plan to one another—we’d leave the front porch light on and sneak to the window to assess the status of our paternal victim in the front yard. When we did, we were absolutely horrified to see our father, in the middle of our front yard, bent over, with his boxers to the ground, mooning South Tampa.

Fuck.

I leapt to the lightswitch, flipped it to the off position, while my brother unlocked the door and flung it open. “Dad,” we screamed in a loud whisper, “Get in here!”

“I’m quite comfortable out here,” he said, “but if you insist…” He slowly rose and, without pulling up his boxers, started to waddle towards the front porch. My brother and I, without saying a word, ran to our bedrooms where we were remained in our self-imposed imprisonment for the rest of the evening. That night didn’t teach us to stop screwing with our dad, but we did learn to try to confine our pranks to the interior of the house.