I'm a patient person. I'm a reasonable person. I'm an understanding person. I have a long, long, long, long, long fuse, and I'm willing to negotiate and compromise as long as all parties seem genuinely interested and reasonable. It takes a lot to piss me off. I can count on one hand (yes, one hand, that's just five fingers!) the number of times I've ever yelled at another adult in my entire life: my father (once), my husband during the initial pain after discovering his addiction (Twice. Ok, maybe we need two hands; it might have been three or four...), my friend Pat (once) and a security guard at my brother's college graduation (once, and oh, that guy had it coming!). So, you'd better believe it takes a lot to make me screaming, cursing, fly-off-the-handle mad. Yet my son's school district has managed to do it. (Those readers who are sensitive to cursing should definitely skip the last few paragraphs: you know, the ones where I go into screaming all caps mode, because I truly have had it.)

For three years, my son has been struggling with a serious problem that interferes with his ability to learn in school. For three years, I have repeated just one thing: "Please, please, help my child with this one serious issue." It started off being manageable, we didn't know the system, and we paid for outside help. But over the course of the last three years, the situation has deteriorated further and further, while the district has continued to insist that either they are not responsible for dealing with the problem (which, from my consultations with legal professionals, they are) or that my son's classroom teachers are capable of handling it without additional help or resources (which, given the marked decline in my son's skills in this area, they clearly are not).

Prior to last month's Lie-EP meeting, I sent a letter to the district in the latest back-and-forth foray requesting services. They never formally responded, but with an advocate present and the IEP meeting recorded, my son's principal (the administration's representative at the meeting) suddenly (finally) began to express great concern about the problem that I had been trying to get her to address all year. Yet her solution was more of the same: to have the classroom teachers (under whom my son's performance has declined, and who have yet to succeed in improving it) work harder.

Hey, my addict readers, you all know what happens when you try to work harder, put more willpower into stopping, right? It totally works, doesn't it? It's not that you're going about it the wrong way -- it's not that your thinking is all screwed up -- it's that you're not working hard enough, right? I don't know what all this higher power crap is about. But I've got a great idea: that thing that hasn't been working, let's try more of that! (Ah, sarcasm!) I want to grab the principal and shout, "Admit your powerlessness over my son's issues!!"

So, after the IEP meeting, I wrote the district a letter stating that I was upping the legal ante and would file a complaint with the state and take them to due process if necessary to get them to appropriately address a problem they are legally obligated to address. Yesterday and today I have received several phone messages and e-mails from teachers (The poor teachers! Stuck in the middle of this!) and administrators asking me to discuss this by phone or in person. And each time I said no. No, no, no! They can give my son what I'm requesting, or I can go to due process and have a judge force them to give it to him. And each time they asked for a meeting to talk me out of it, and each time I said no, I got angrier. I am pissed beyond pissed at this point.

So, School District, listen up! I'm talking to you! (Oh, and dear readers, now might be a good time to tune out if you are sensitive to cursing. Unless you are the School District, in which case, FUCKING LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE!) What about "no" do you assholes not get? No, no, no, no, no! I've said it. I'm done talking. Done! You've had three years to work on this problem, and an entire school year with this principal and teacher, during which the problem has gotten worse and worse. I've asked for assistance. You are required by law to give it to me. No more meetings. No more phone calls. No more e-mails. No more trying.

Why on earth would you rather spend my tax money, and the tax money of my friends and neighbors, dicking around and writing letters and holding meetings and paying lawyers rather than PAYING A FUCKING PROFESSIONAL TO HELP MY SPECIAL NEEDS SON! STOP, STOP, STOP WASTING MY FUCKING TIME AND GIVE MY SON THE FUCKING HELP HE NEEDS AS YOU ARE FUCKING REQUIRED TO DO BY LAW, YOU FUCKING ASSWIPES! SERIOUSLY!! (Whew! And believe me, I'm totally screaming all of that in my Eric Cartman pissed off voice.)

Seriously, I'm done.