REALLY?? Really!

Tatum's mega-whipped out, every second, throw up on my shoe, PHOBIA... is fire alarms. Just to write the word sends him into pre-hysterical panic.
It all started when he was about 3 years old and a wooden screen fell on him, splitting his head open, sending us to the ER. While we were waiting to be admitted, the fire alarm sounded, sending us outside, in the very chilling weather, like a couple of homeless people, to wait out the duration in the doorway. Fast forward 4 years. Trying to make up for the extra grumpy mood I have subjected my captive children to, I take Tatum and Emma to the high school play, Cinderella. We are having a great time...Tatum is laughing and pointing and smiling the whole time. Now comes the crescendo of the first act... when Cinderella appears... transformed by her fairy god-mother... complete with strobe lighting, smoke, and ....a fire alarm? Without a moments notice, my son's eyes loose focus and become wild as he screams "FIRE ALARM!!!! EVERYONE OUT!!!" and runs from the auditorium, arms swinging wildly above him as he makes a desperate sprint for the back door. He is the first one out because everyone is still sitting in their seats, dazed and confused, watching this crazy child hurl himself up the aisle and out the back door. Of course, Emma and I are the 2nd and 3rd ones out and Emma is so frightened by the scene that she is crying uncontrollably. I am trying to hold it together myself.

Now I ask, how many people have actually been in a building when a fire alarm has gone off? What are the chances that not only have I been privy to TWO but they have BOTH been with the only person in the world that I know who is Terrified by them! Really? What are the odds?!

post script: Yes, Mrs Wilson, I do need to use that many exclamation marks because YES I AM SCREAMING at my audience!