My son has entered the stage of boyhood where he likes to destroy things and torture little critters and generally impose his will over things smaller than he, be they inanimate or living. This is not altogether unique for a five-year-old boy, but what makes it special is the reaction his behavior elicits from Hot Wife, who is and always has been very neat and prissy and well-put-together.

Hot Wife has never before witnessed the kind of disdain for nature and cleanliness being exhibited by our son. She has, on several occasions, been completely shocked by what she has seen from him. She comes to me desperate and flummoxed and exasperated, and she asks me if what he is doing is normal. Perhaps we should call in a specialist, she suggests. No, I say. He’s a five-year-old boy. This is what they do. They punch themselves in the dick to see if it hurts. They pick their nose incessantly to examine the form and texture of what their sinuses can produce. They step on bugs and pick at the carcass of their victim, occasionally eating the detritus.

I have, for the most part, been able to calm Hot Wife and assure her that we are not raising a serial killer. But yesterday? Yesterday there was nothing I could have said to ease her worried mind.

The Champ came running into our bedroom, proudly displaying a small plastic water bottle he had filled to the top with snails and water. The cap was screwed on tightly and as he showed-off his murderous little nature project, he was shaking the bottle violently. Well, Hot Wife saw the carnage our son had wrought and blurted out an “EEEEEEEWWWWWWUHHH!” that rattled the closet doors and set off car alarms three blocks away.

Hot Wife instructed our son to take The Great Snail Massacre outside and dump it out IMMEDIATELY, peppering her admonition with about seven or eight repetitions of the phrase, “I’m seriously going to barf.”

Me? I was laughing.

And our son? Well, he hears what he wants to hear. Mom said he had to dump the snails out, but she didn’t say he had to stop torturing them. So he took The Great Snail Massacre out to the sidewalk, dumped the bottle out, spread the snails evenly, and ran over them repeatedly with the wheels of his Batman skateboard. He left in his wake a 10-foot space that was paved with mashed snail guts, pulverized snail shells and a small population of fully intact snails who were slithering away, having lived to tell the next generation about The Great Snail Massacre of 2006.

When Hot Wife went outside to check that The Champ had followed her directions, she saw the sidewalk in front of our house carpeted in a film of shiny snail mush. “EEEEEEEWWWWWWUHHH!” she exclaimed again, this time putting her hand in front of her mouth, as if she expected a spray of vomit to spew forth from herself at any moment and her hand would effectively shove it back down.

I’ll say this: I know from experience that it’s only going to get worse. Soon our boy will be dropping cinder blocks onto live rodents and singeing his initials into the tails neighborhood cats with a magnifying glass and lighting the wick of a quarter-stick of dynamite and dropping it in a neighbor’s mailbox. I know this to be true because I did it, all of my friends did it and every boy I’ve ever known has passed through this destructive phase.

I may not always be happy with my son’s behavior, but I will always be grateful to him for pushing his mother to the very brink of vomiting. I'm truly blessed.

Comments

oh my god...i shudder to think what the little "miracle" I am growing in my belly this very moment is going to be capable of in a few year's time...I'd better start callin therapists now

Fuck.

(Pause for vomit-controlling breath)

This sort of behaviour isn't, FYI, the exclusive domain of little boys. My tyrannical little sister, back in the day, conducted mass slaughters of slugs, massacres of worms and torture of any and all insect life. Some of her murderous rampages involved hurling her victims at her BEYOND SQUEAMISH older sister.

Dude, this post gave me BAD flashbacks.

My brothers would set frogs alite. They dipped the frog in something like parafine, then flicked a lit match at it. Apparently this is best done at night. The frog is good for at least 3 or 4 times. Note: none of them turned out to be serial killers, that I know of ;)

It sounds to me like your little man has yet to learn of the awesomeness that happens when slugs are introduced to salt.

I wasn't very destructive as a child, but I do remember pouring salt on slugs. I also recall that the residue remained there for a really long time.

I'm sorry. This post made me sad.
I'm with Hot Wife.

Dude. When I was a kid, I bashed a frog with a 2x4 in my back yard. Two girls who saw me do it yelled at me, calling me a sick little fuck...they made me realize that the frog had nerves which registered pain to its brain and that I had no business causing anything massive amounts of pain - ever. Since then I haven't hurt anything willingly. Maybe you should take your son aside and tell him he's a sick little fuck and he should stop doing that shit, or in the next life he'll come back as an unlucky suburban snail. Seriously, though - I know the boys will be boys thing applies to being rambunctious, but torture is, well, TORTURE!!!! Fuck, man, your kid takes delight in hurting things, and you laugh it off? That shit is fucked up.

One of my friends now once played frog lacrosse. He seems to be a super gentle, kind human. But he learned.

I'm with Hotwife, too. Torturing living beings - especially ones you aren't going to eat shortly thereafter - is seriously fucked up behaviour that needs redirection. Maybe you should introduce him to the joys of escargot. That'll cure him. slurp... YUM!

See, you need to give him a sibling to torture. (New to this blog, so if The Champ has a sibling to torture, simply redirect him.) Siblings are there to save the neighborhood animals and small woodland creatures from boys. Except when said sibling is also a boy. Then you have my house. And a surprisingly animal-free neighborhood.

Now, I'm no PETA member, but I have to agree with HotWife and Wondersis. That is just wrong. There are other ways to make his mother sick (skidmarks, anyone?).

And ewwww here too!!! My older brother used to shit like that, then he discovered how much more fun torturing his sister was......Beware BBF BEWARE!!!!!!

About now... I'm really wishing I had a girl instead of a boy.

Delurking to say ... I love the blog, and I hate to come across as a humorless pedant on the first post, but ... dude. If I saw any kid of mine kid gleefully stomping snails, that kid would be going to bed early and sleeping on his stomach for a week. Animals, no matter how lowly, are not toys. They aren't here for your cute, just-going-through-a-phase little boy to torment for fun. He caused pain. That just isn't cute and funny. And "every kid does it" is not a good reason to let him.

Bella, who as a child gave another girl a black eye for stomping on baby frogs.

Oh boy, DGM! Looks like you've hit a nerve here. I'm assuming that Hot Wife has been setting The Champ straight on what's appropriate and what's not. That's what women do! I think I may edit this post if I were you or you may have a wee anti-snail torture mutiny on your hands...

Good God! They're snails for Christ sake. He's a five year old boy. What the f*** else is he supposed to do? Meditate?

My brother only had one moment that truly grossed out my mom - when he had a dead bird in a ziplock bag in his room. It was disgusting as it had been there for probably a week or so. I was the unlucky one who found it, and then screamed bloody murder all the way to my mom to tattle on him.

“EEEEEEEWWWWWWUHHH!”
From Texas.

You should check out http://moreena.blogspot.com/2006/04/crispy_09.html
Her daughter has compassion for worms. Your son could learn a thing or two.

I'm with Cheeto.. slugs + salt = good entertainment. LoL. Also, do slugs even have a central nervous system? I don't belive they do, so it's not torture!

I'm sure HotWife redirected LHPHS(?) away from his experiments with Death.

Hell, when I was a kid, we used to use the old magnifying lens-o-death on giant carpenter ants...those suckers EXPLODED. What a hoot.
When we got really creative, we would catch flies, trim one wing and super-glue a length of fishing line to them and a table. They would fly around in circles all day. It was like having a powered kite. if you were lucky enough to have more than one, they woudl dog fight on the kitchen table. Good times, Good times.

When I was little one of the neighborhood kids (who, btw, turned out just fine...and successful) used to put various things in the mouths of small creatures, usually frogs or birds (ex-lax, alka-seltzer, etc) and watch them explode, or sometimes IMplode.

One time he tied the neighbors cat to his bicycle and ripped up the lawn with it attached to the back. It was quite the site (ok, er, NOT!)

My brother used to bowl my hampsters ball down the hall and into his bedroom door continuously. Loser!

Anyhow, this is a boy thing. (and in some cases possibly a girl thing) I am with your wife on the vomit part, but I'm afraid it will get worse before it gets any better...

...it's actually kinda funny!

I'm so on board with the salt detail. DGM, you need to introduce the boy to salt. Having lived in southern california there is ALWAYS a good population of snails to experiment on.

Other people, get over it. I go to camp every year with a cabin of 8/9 year old boys who inevitably love to catch crickets and grasshoppers. They keep them in something--whatever they can find and then when they get close to dying, they use them as bait in the pond. It's growing up. If you never caught a firefly in a jar or a crawdad in the bayou or a butterfly or some other pretty creature in a jar or box, you just didn't experiment enough outside!

Great parenting there. Make sure to check visiting hours at the local juvenile hall. You'll be needing them.

Just as long as your kiddo isn't torturing small, furry, woodland creatures I think he'll be ok. Maybe you should introduce him into torturing cockroaches. Theres not a soul alive(a sane one anyways)who would sympathize with the torture of a cockroach.

Just so we're all clear, I could care less about the snails. I just do not want them in my house or smashed on my sidewalk. They're slimy snails that eat petunias, people. They have no redeeming qualities.

My neighbor helped me see the lesson in this disgusting experience. If my son sees someone else doing something that he thinks is not right, he needs to speak up. The real problem is if my son does not think for himself or speak up. I am just glad I have DGM to handle the "boy" stuff because I will never understand. It was an opportunity to learn - for all of us.

LOL I have 3 sons and no it doesn't get better. A mother gets an education raising sons. :-)

Okay, I had no brothers, and Hubby was what we call "a Sissy" growing up, so Boy Stuff is new territory. Are you saying that I should start preparing myself for Boy Terror to smoosh up innocent snails?!

none of my five boys have done any of this stuff...my one girl? Hung the kitten out of a bedroom window on a skipping rope....she taught it to swim too. She's nearly quite nice now, she's 17, it took a looooooong time!

This behavior is simply a boy's Right of Passage. It's not a big deal. I think this stuff happens so that boys can get it out of their systems and grow up and become human beings. (Most of them, anyway.)

I am with Hot Wife ... this is really frickin sick. You need to talk to your son about compassion and respect for living things. Bleh. Tell him to stick to punching himself in the nuts.

"Boys will be boys?" Come on! How about having boys and men taking responsibility for some of the things that they do without providing this lame ass cover?!

sociopaths will be sociopaths too.

Hear ye! Hear ye! I now call to order this meeting of People For The Ethical Treatment of Stupid-Ass Garden Pests"

People. Come ON! It's not as if my son was out clubbing seals this weekend. He was smashing SNAILS, which is only slightly more barbaric than driving down to Home Depot and buying a five-gallon bottle of snail poison, which the snails eat, presumably thinking it's a plant you really like, and then they die a long, slow, painful death.

Rest assured, spazes: Hot Wife and I do not teach our child to shoot bald eagles out of the sky or stick pins in the eyes of lemurs. I dare say, the boy has a kind heart. But he is curious, and sometimes that curiosity takes on somewhat distatseful manifestations. But now that I have told him the whole blogosphere hates what he did, well, he may never leave the house again. And he wants Lexapro.

Now get a grip. All of you. Before I kill some fucking stink bugs.

(One more thing. If you're going to leave a comment condeming my parenting skills, please be kind enough NOT to do it anonymously. I'll need to know where to send the hate mail.)

Sorry, I forgot to sign in when I left a comment. Mine is the "punching himself in the nuts" comment. Please send me hate mail... I never get hate mail, and this bothers me.

I don't think you're rearing a psycho or anything, but I do think you ought to teach your son respect. My neice is curious about critters, and she can hold a ladybug in her hand and just *observe* it. My sister has taught her to *be gentle* with living things.

I just don't like senseless slaughter. I'm Buddhist, though. Let a complete stranger push her values on you over the internet.

(I'm not on lexapro, but I am taking cymbalta... does that count?)

dude, chill! Have a beer. Or a zima. Or something.

Tell that boy of yours that if he's gonna get his undies in a bunch every time the flippin' internet loonies don't like what he does he better get himself a whole load of new undies.

At least you didn't tell us you let him cry himself to sleep or that hotwife still nurses him or something. Imagine the outcry from THAT!

On the one hand...ish
On the other hand....I have a 3yr old boy who used to eat asian beetles. Those things stink to high heaven when smooshed. No sooner did I read this entry, my husband told me about when he was younger, he and his brother used to see who could smoosh the bigger pile of box elder bugs. Who can make the bigger mess of bug guts and gore? I showed him this post and he said that if they had them snails here in Minnesota, they would have been all over them like that too. That leads me back to the one hand...ish

Love the stories DGM!
~~From woman who used to pull wings off of flies to see them attempt to fly off~~

It's just a stage of boyhood people. Wait until he discovers the next step, Fun with Fireworks. I mean come on we all did it. It's just what we males do. We play guns then we shoot guns. We light fireworks then we light them and throw them at each other. Survival of the fittest in it's greatest form.

I mean it could be worse; you could have ended up with the pyro kid, although there is still time on that one...

I've personally no doubt that it's just a kid thing. Wait until, as a couple others have said, The Champ discovers that there are two sides to every bottle-rocket fight: the sitting ducks in the rowboat, and the Staunch Defenders of the Holy Shoreline. What fun a bottle-rocket jihad is.

That said... I enjoy the writing here immensely and thought I should finally de-lurk to tell you so.

Thanks.

BWAHAHHAHA!

I much prefer my snails with butter and garlic, but well, to each their own. I vote we collect a whole bunch and send them to everyone who freaked. Yeaaaaaaah. snail guts for everyone!

get a grip people - he's a little boy, and thats what little boys (and sometimes little girls) do.

mmmm snails. yum.
(oh! I want hate mail! I never get hate mail! no one loves me enough to send hate mail! sob! I wanna be one of the popular kids!!!)

future serial killer!

Shit...I lived in the Bay Area when I was like 5 or 6 and snails werre a toy. There are so many ways to smash them, squash them, throw them, eat them, feed them to younger kids... Of course, in the 70's, that was Boys being Boys. By the way, my 4-year old daughter likessquashing bugs under her shoes and then peling them off to show us. Kids are kids...

Oh, some of these comments remind me of why I love The Internet so much.

Also? OMG! YOUR SON MUTILATES SNAILS! I'M SO DELINKING YOU!!!

Oh no I'm late into this...but I'm with all the gentle souls, please don't smoosh snails boy child, please? I'm pleading with my own boy child too, please honey no hurting anything, ever and let's skip the punching yourself in the dick phase too - mk?

I agree with Hot Wife.

The only thing sick about this situation is the fact that there are so many people rallying behind the snail.

I can understand thinking it was disgusting or gross but to have real empathy for a snail? Get a grip.

It's really great that you are all so wonderful and have such respect for all living creatures but why not focus your energy on something more productive like ending the senseless slaughter of billions of America's innocent insects that are struck down daily on the country's windshields.

PS: I once boiled a lobster while it was still alive!! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THE HORROR!

Ooookay. I love animals. Seriously. (Well, except dogs that bark at frakking midnight when i'm trying to get to sleep.) I'm a vegetarian and hardly ever eat eggs or dairy, that's how much I love animals.

But snails? Even I didn't get that squeed out by the idea of a small boy smashing a snail. What's next, should we not swat a fly? Or kill a cockroach? the kid wanted to see what would happen, he saw, and I doubt he'll do it again. Smashing snails does not mean he's going to grow up to become the next Jeffrey Dahmer. (Unless he also wets the bed in five years and sets fires, and well, DGM, then you have your hands full.)

Now if he were trying kittens onto the back of his bike and riding around yelling "CATABUNGA!" I'd have issues with that.

Freaking SNAILS, man.

Dear John, (I've always wanted to write that!)
Perhaps some of us snail empathisers have enough energy to focus one more than one thing at a time - ye gods is that possible I hear you shriek? Why yes it is indeedy, I simultaneously recoil in horror at the senseless slaughter of furry animals in abbatoirs, cute furry animals in fur factories and believe it or not, at the same time, feel sad for the mice and other small critters my cats bring me for treats... amazing huh? To top it all (you may want to sit down) I also find time and energy to protest other senseless slaughtering of the human kind, in fact I save most of my energy for that one, jees not enough hours in the day eh?

Yours in snail empathy, Bo.

GROSSSSS
Those are some huge ass snails though, excuse my ignorance but being from the midwest I think this is a legit questions: Are those from the wild or from a pet store. I think that it is less gross if they are from the wild..still gross though.

Thank you though for the explanation, now I understand a little better why my 6 year old step son punches his dick.

'Funny', said the lurker from France, 'this thing about snails'. Wasn't there a reasoning that went 'marijuana -> heroin'? So is this 'snails -> cats -> human beings'? Doubt it. He's five. To him, a snail is really just a snail. Kids like we saw in "The Wasp Factory" are sort-of 'rare'. I ask my 5 year old daughter and 3 year old son to say why they want to squish and squirt the "smaller" animals. Well, it appears they find it fun. So I ask if it isn't also fun to watch them go about their business, the eldest says "Yes, that too." So I would suspect it is snails he wants to squish, perhaps related to a certain underfoot texture, or an overheard adult remark about them being "pests", and when he's bored with that, he may just drift over to one of his many non-death interests, then back to the newest fun-to-squish bug, and back and around and through...Mistake to try to analyse kids too much, but still, as a dad, I do like to suggest non-death ways of interacting with the environment. Might work...
Better he does the killing than you: hard to admit in one's own case, but in all liklihood his adult pattern will be more woven on your loom, rather than it being something completely of his own invention. And you aren't torturing snails in your spare time. Are you?
In my receding youth the neighbour boy climbed trees to dash bluejay nests to the ground and bludgeon the young: said his dad didn't like them. He was only trying to help, you see....I felt it was wrong and just watched: birds were too high an order of creature for me (I guess I was 6 or 7).

While I definitely have the EWWWW factor going, he's a little boy. I hear boys do that. My boy is 4, and from what you're describing, I can expect this behavior sometime after he hits 5?? Ewwww!!

But then again - my sister tells me I used to pull roly polys apart and throw them on her.

I'm not a serial killer, but I think the person that lives inside me is up to no good.

Snails must die. Somebody's got to do it. Might as well have a little fun. I like to go after them with scissors, let their little necks get stretched real good and chop their heads off. the little heads wiggle and wiggle. I also use a blowtorch on them. And a little saw. I like to crack them like eggs and see them try to figure out what to do with no shell! salt is fun but just a little. you don't want to kill em too quick. Cutting their eyes off is neat too. nd boiling them just enough to get their attention. I microwaved one and the goddamend thing fuckin exploded into a million pieces! It was like a snail supernova.