Check your mailboxes! Especially if you live on Calle Cedro. Not for exploding packages, but for flattened roadkill.

As the weather has been warmer, Ryan has been playing a lot with Brittney and Jonathan, the neighborhood kids, down the street. We've had some "episodes" with Brittney in the past, but I figured playing outside is better than staying cooped up in the house or sitting in front of the TV.

Saturday afternoon Ry went down to play at B's house, and when he came home for dinner he mentioned (quite casually) that they had found a dead squirrel, and that B had dared him to touch it. So I made him wash his hands three or four times, and then I lectured him on touching dead animals. Case closed, so I think.

Sunday morning comes, and B came over around 10:30. They took off for her house, and I settle in to a chair in the back yard, enjoying the peace and quiet of a Sunday morning with some coffee and a good book to read.

Fifteen minutes later, Chad comes out and says, "Come inside. We have an Issue." Inside I find Ryan, bawling his head off, and Chad is hollering at him, "What did your mother tell you about touching dead animals?"

In between Ryan's crying and Chad's hollering, I learn that the dead squirrel from yesterday is now in someone's mailbox on our street. And it didn't get there magically! Wonderful! Chad gets some big leather gloves and a trash bag, and then I had the joy of walking Ryan back down the street to find which mailbox the squirrel was in. As we approached Jonathan's house, I can see a little squished furry head and paws sticking out of their mailbox. Next door to Jonathan's house I can hear Brittney's grandfather SCREAMING at her. Ryan starts crying even harder, but he pulls out the dead squirrel. I'm thinking, "Special delivery!" I held the trash bag while he put it in, and I tried not to puke and/or laugh.

So it turns out that Jonathan's sisters had looked out their window and caught Ryan and B putting the squirrel in the mailbox. They captured Ryan and B and marched them first to our house, and then B to her house.

After the squished squirrel is in our trash bag, B's grandfather comes out to holler at Ryan. Brittney is nowhere to be seen. He hollers, "Who put the squirrel in the mailbox?" Ryan answers, "I did. But Brittney triple-dog-dared me to do it." Her grandfather's face is almost purple, by the way, and he hollers, "Well, if she dared you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?" Ryan answers meekly, "No." Then B's grandfather goes on a tirade about how stupid it was to do something someone dared you to do, etc., Brittney is no longer allowed to play with Ryan, etc., and so on and so on. I echoed the grandpa's sentiment.

I offered for Ryan to clean out Jonathan's family's mailbox, but they said that was okay and not to worry. I walk Ryan home and make him carry the dead squirrel in the bag. He was so upset he was crying and shaking, but I was too mad to feel sorry for him. I also kept wanting to sit down on the curb and laugh. Inside, we make him wash his hands a million times, and then we tell him he's spending the rest of the day in his room. Finally, he's grounded from playing with B indefinitely.

Later on, Brittney's grandfather came down to tell us he wasn't mad at Ryan, but he figured he'd better scare them both to knock some sense into them, blah blah blah. He was very congenial, so we laughed over it. Then Jonathan's dad came down and said that he understands that it was B who put Ryan up to the dirty deed, and he's not mad at Ryan, etc., etc. He adds that Ryan is always welcome at their house.

Ryan spent the majority of the day in his room. When he came out, he was pretty quiet and meek. Chad and I had to stifle the urge to make squirrel jokes (or we did it when he wasn't around). For dinner I made a big pasta salad, and Ryan was pushing it around on his plate, trying to identify the ingredients. "What's in this?" he asked. I replied, "Don't worry, no squirrels were harmed in the making of this meal."

At bedtime, we put Ryan to bed and had a little talk. Here's the transcript.

Me: "What's the most important thing you learned today, Ryan?"
Ry: (Pause.) "Um, not to touch dead squirrels ...?"
Me: "No, it's something bigger and more important than that."
Ry: "Um, not to put them in mailboxes ...?"
Me: "NO! The lesson is, you shouldn't do something just because someone triple-dog-dares you to!"

It's one of those stories that we are going to repeat at family dinners for years. Except right now Ryan is still a little too sensitive to laugh about it. I have never wanted so much to simultaneously throttle him and sit down and laugh until my sides split. I don't think the ultimate lesson has sunk in, but I sure hope it does before he's fifteen and someone dares him to sneak out and take his mom's car on a joyride down to Albuquerque.