Laugh or cry?

So I've always (affectionately) referred to my 8 year old as "Bad Boy". He doesn't particularly care for it at the moment, so I only do it in those moments when he is in the mood to not have a meltdown... And only I'm allowed to call him that.

Anyway, Bad Boy is incredibly smart, a little mischievous and very independent (which basically means he hates being told what to do and has those meltdowns I mentioned earlier when he doesn't get his own way). We're going through a transitional period at home, naturally, because of the divorce, and sadly, Bad Boy has been somewhat caught in the middle. I have tried to  keep the kids from most of the drama, unfortunately, my ex is not so mature and has recently relaunched his campaign of blackening my name. This of course has a negative effect on the boys. My Baby, the 7 year old, has been mostly immune as he's always been mama's boy. Bad Boy is what I refer to as a neutral party, like Switzerland.

As all kids do, Bad Boy is going through this phase testing the waters to see how far he can take advantage. Yesterday lunchtime I receive a phone call from the Principle of his school, which I let go to voicemail as I was on a call to my manager in California. When I listened to the message this is what I heard (names have been changed to protect the innocent):

"I have Bad Boy here in the office with me and he had told the substitute teacher that he has a peanut allergy and that mom had given him a PB&J sandwich. The teacher panicked and sent him to the office...."

Now at this point, I am DYING with hysterics in the reception area of my office. Bad Boy's favourite sandwich: PB&J. Bad Boy's favourite snack: PB&J crackers. Bad Boy has been known to eat Peanut Butter straight out the jar (what kid, without an allergy, hasn't?). So I calmly call the Principle back, inform her in polite words that he's full of it, and allowed her to inflict whatever 'punishment' she deemed appropriate. That punishment was to sit in her office until he confessed why he lied.

The challenging part was how do I have a serious and meaningful discussion with him about why what he did was so wrong, while keeping a straight face?? Well, you'll be pleased to know I managed it. It took a few hours, I had to repeat the story several times first, but he now understands that allergies are very serious. Ok, so I may have used parental license to lie and say that he may have been the recipient of an epi-shot had someone had one in the room and that's very painful and very dangerous..... So he agreed to apologise. And is clear on the fact that using ANY bogus excuse to get out of class is unacceptable.

However, I see a very long relationship with each of his Principles in my future... we're only in 3rd grade... sigh!