50 Things I’d Rather Do Than Go To Another IEP Meeting

The first time I wrote this list, Na was six years old.

I had been cramming for one of my first IEPs the way you cram for an exam you never asked to take – furiously, desperately, convinced that if I just knew enough, said the right things, asked the right questions, someone in that room would help my son.

I was wrong.

What I found instead was a system I had wrongly assumed existed to take care of people and their parents. It didn’t. It exploited them. Quietly, systematically, and without apology. No matter the creed, the color, or the family name.

I will never forget the feeling of staring into the cold, dead eyes of SPED administrators who could summon nothing more than the company line when challenged. Who looked at my six year old son and saw a budget line. A liability. A checkbox.

I also had the unique privilege of witnessing this same system through an entirely different lens – as the mother of a Senior Honor student in the same school system. Same hallways. Same administrators. Different child.

Completely different story.

That contrast will never leave me.

That was the day the veil lifted and never went back down.

I wrote the original version of this list in 2017 as an act of survival. Humor was the only weapon I had.

Nine years later, I have more material.

50 Things I’d Rather Do Than Go To Another IEP Meeting

1. Recite Belcalis Almanzar’s ode to cat hydration Def Poetry Jam style at a MAGA convention hosted at a Palm Springs nursing home.
2. Recite the unedited lyrics to ‘Get Low’ by Lil Jon as a bedtime story to a group of Senior Citizens while making awkward eye contact with Grandma Helen and the bridge club.
3. Bathe a feral cat.
4. Get my Lady Business waxed into the shape of a question mark.
5. Roller skate through Walmart asking strangers if they are “The Gatekeeper.”
6. Go full tribal and embrace the contamination asshattery — the bead maze at the pediatrician’s office placed by some sadist as a safe harbor for staph, the bathroom sign reminding employees to wash their hands. Red flag. Possible e coli situation. Godspeed.
7. Cut my yard with a rusted pair of kitchen scissors.
8. Hang out in the airport smokers’ lounge while suffering from an active stomach virus.
9. Get stuck in rush hour traffic while suffering a stomach virus.
10. Eat sushi from the sketchy restaurant in the Atlanta Airport.
11. Clean a dumpster by hand.
12. Go back to high school and tell my Algebra 2 teacher she was wrong and I didn’t need her class to graduate. Turns out creativity and gusto trumps “accreditation.”
13. Argue with an overly enthusiastic mother who feels powerful because somebody gave her a clipboard.
14. Cover my body with spray adhesive, roll in glitter, and offer myself up to the Mississippi mosquitos in July.
15. Listen empathically to someone who uses the word conversate.
16. Wear a Leisure Suit everywhere without offering anyone an explanation.
17. Clean the port-o-potties after a Phish concert without gloves.
18. Become a human resource “executive”.
19. Become a politician.
20. Start introducing myself as the artist formerly known as Joan of Arc.
21. Start acting like I forgot about Dre.
22. Get throat punched by Sylvester Stallone.
23. Anchor myself permanently and legally to a fishing pole donning a flag proclaiming allegiance to Menudo in front of Brian Littrell’s Alys Beach home – yes, the [Backstreet Boy] – with a subwoofer playing Bye Bye Bye. We’ve wasted too much press on him. There are more important boys.
24. Spend the rest of my days attempting to secure the Ajanti Dagger and foil the plot of the evil Numspa — wait, that’s The Golden Child — hang on, I got caught up.
25. Get stuck in an elevator with Jay Z and Maria Abramovic.
26. Spend the rest of my life on a quest for the lost souls of those involved with the Mississippi Educational system.
27. Put any actual faith into the individuals responsible for establishing and upholding the current system as it stands.
28. Take donuts to the teachers to fix “it.” By “it” I mean autism. This was an actual solution offered to me by a school superintendent. A real one. With a salary.
29. Systematically expose every weakness of each individual that wronged my child and dedicate every breath of life I have left to seeing their demise. With love and light, of course.
30. Wear Crocs.
31. Parallel park.
32. Finally do something constructive with all of the IEP paperwork – wrap each epoch in a shroud of color coded recyclable plastic, carefully place each in the bottom of a discarded canoe, and ceremonially light it on fire the day before the Spring solstice.
33. Trade-in WiFi for Dial-Up.
34. Star in a Urinary Incontinence Commercial.
35. Watch a marathon of Sarah McLachlan SPCA Dog commercials with a group of highly sensitive 7 year olds and their dogs.
36. Spend the rest of my days channeling my inner Orphan Annie – convincing myself the sun will come out tomorrow while cleaning fecal matter off of things that were never meant to have fecal matter on them.
37. Let my golden years play out like the Titanic while silently reviewing the years I wasted waiting on the world to change.
38. Go Live on Instagram during a colon cleanse.
39. Go Live on Facebook from my bathroom during a colon cleanse. (I’ve had time to upgrade platforms since 2017.)
40. Drink a tall glass of curdled milk after ingesting whatever is in that Tupperware container in the back of my refrigerator.
41. Set myself on fire.
42. Go back to high school.
43. Become a human resource executive.

Wait, I already said that. That’s how bad it is.

44. Become a politician.

Wait, I said that too.

You see what IEP meetings do to a person?

45. Star in an Imodium commercial of my own design. Picture it – live on social media.

Imodium AF™

I always trust my gut — especially when I’m suffering from crippling, nauseating bouts of explosive diarrhea. That’s why I turn to Imodium AF – it’s like the OG Imodium, turned up to ELEVEN.

Basically, you’ll never poop again. And that’s cool, because you have other sht to do.*

Thanks, Imodium AF!

If you made it this far, you’re one of us. You know the fluorescent lights. You know the manila folders. You know the feeling of sitting across from someone who holds your child’s future in their hands and watching them check their watch.

You also know that we keep showing up. Every single time. Because that’s what we do.

Na is fourteen now. We’re still in it.

We’re still here.

To be continued. 💙

If this made you laugh, cry, or both — share it with every special needs parent you know. They need it today.

Drop a comment below and tell me the most unhinged thing that’s ever happened in your IEP meeting. I’ll wait.

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