Case #12465 : The Case of the Missing School Pictures

Yesterday, James said, "I wish I could mail pictures to people." Thinking that he meant pictures that he had drawn, I said that was fine. He told me he was going to put them in the mailbox and, again, I said that was fine. I thought he was going to put them in our mailbox to be mailed out (I would just go get them out later). Then he told me that he put one picture on my nightstand and he was going to to put the rest in the mailbox. So out he went. At just that moment, Kellen decided to get into the blue food coloring and it got everywhere. So I spent a while cleaning that up and then I realized that James had been gone a long time. I went out to check on him and here he was coming up the street with his bike and he said, "Luanne loved my picture, mommy." She is a friend of ours that lives two blocks away and I thought that was nice that he drew a picture for her and took it all the way down there. Fade to seven hours later when I am going to bed and I see the picture on my nightstand is actually his school picture. An alarm sound went off in my head. I went to look in the envelope of school pictures and his were all gone. I had a sinking feeling that he had just gone all around the neighborhood putting his school picture in random people's mailboxes. The next morning, I asked James at breakfast what he did with his school pictures and he looked at me like I was crazy. "Mom, I told you I was mailing them. I put them in the mailboxes!" Apparently, he had gone around for four blocks, putting his picture in total strangers mailboxes. After he went to school, I drove around and looked in people's mailboxes and recovered about five pictures (that he had cut apart himself, so the edges were all uneven). He went a really long way. For those of you who have been to Sioux Center, he made it all the way to the ugly blue castle house across from the park. That is quite a trek and I don't know most of the people. I am sure they opened their mailboxes and were like, "Who the h$#C is this?" Oh well, at least I have a few pictures left and I am sure some people are out there wondering who this kid is.