Depantsing Debacle

I got the dreaded call from the principal yesterday. Evidently Will depantsed his best friend at recess. He was pulled inside, talked to by the principal, Mr. Bacon, and was supposed to spend the next recess with him as a consequence. Mr. Bacon was great about the whole thing. He talked to Will about the golden rule, and putting yourselves in Jack's shoes. When Mr Bacon talked to me he recognized that they were good friends, and that their silliness had just gotten out of hand, but he couldn't just let it go either. He knew that Will was remorseful and that the situation had made an impression on him to where he wasn't going to be doing that again. In the meantime, Will came down with a low grade fever, and I picked him up early, just as I had the day before. Since this was the second day of sore throat, and now a fever, I took him in for a strep test, which was negative. He's home today all day resting, and although he's not acting all that sick, he's being quieter than his younger brother!
When I was first processing what Will had done to his best friend, I was so mortified and upset. I wondered if his friend Jack had been too. I quickly called his mom and assured her we'd be handling this at home. She was very reassuring - she knows how good of friends the boys are, and guessed that Jack wouldn't be feeling the absolute mortification that a little bit older kid would be feeling. I didn't want to minimize what Will had done, but yet I knew that he had not done it maliciously or to hurt his good friend. I was sure there was a reasonable - although silly, explanation for what had happened.
Will's story goes like this: they were playing "Extreme Stunts" - coming up with stories of stunts they were going to pull, when Will said, "...and then I'll drive over you with my car!" and Jack said, "no, I know, then you'll pull my pants down!" (How you go from one thing to the next, only a 1st grade boy knows!) So Will says he was going to "pretend" to pull his pants down, only instead of pretending, they actually really came down. He says he didn't think they'd really come down - a classic example of my kid's lack of impulse-control, and not thinking things through. As part of his punishment at home, I had Will write Jack a letter. The original letter said,

Dear Jack,
I'm sorry for accidentally pulling your pants down. Will you please forgive me?
From your best friend,
Will
P.S. Were you wearing a belt?

Oh I was trying so hard not to laugh while I explained that whether or not Jack was wearing a belt didn't matter. After I nixed the first P.S. the second P.S. (because every good letter has to have a P.S.) said, "Please write back." After nixing the 2nd P.S. the 3rd P.S. said "Can we talk privately at school? I have to tell you something." When I asked him what that was all about he said he just wanted to make sure that he and Jack and were alright and that they were still friends. The tears were welling up in his eyes! That's when I knew we'd better go get that letter delivered as soon as possible, so that life could move on! Damon took Will down the street to Jack's house and all was forgiven. Jack handled the whole thing very well. He was excited to see Will, they shook hands, and that was that! Whew! Although Will still has to spend a recess with Mr. Bacon when he gets back to feeling better...