Caught in the moment

It is my favorite time of day. The twilight, if you will, in our house. Those few precious moments in the early evening when the days work is finished and before bedtime. Homework is completed. Household tasks done. Time for my family to settle in and enjoy one another's company uninterrupted by external interference.
The boys and I are upstairs mindlessly watching a movie in K1's room. The cat is curled on my lap purring with contentment as we take turns petting his warm limp body. We have seen this movie numerous times before and are playing "what's the next line". Few rules to this game, basically you yell out the next line before anyone, including the actors can during the important scenes.
All is good until K2 needs to go down stairs for something. K2 does not want the fun to go on without him, but he must to leave the room. Using his childlike reasoning, K2 starts down the stairs hollering,"Pause the movie, pause the movie" repeatedly so we will not enjoy ourselves without him. We do not listen to him and continue to watch and re-enact thinking he will only hurry his pace to rejoin us.
Wrong we are. "Accidentally" K2 trips on the stairs and starts screaming for effect. "HElP!", he yells very loudly, "I can't get up!" Being familiar with this often used ploy we ignore him. "I can't get up!." "Stuck here- help!". Brings nothing. The volume of his yells decrease but he continues. "Help, help, I really can't walk", still has no effect on us. This continues for too long. "Help, help, help". It is starting to annoy me. I know better to respond to this as it only encourages this behavior but I snap and shout, "Shut up and get up".
This of course adds fuel to his cries which he starts again with increased gusto. "Little help here, I'm crippled. Not nice leaving me lay here", K2 persists.
It's go time and I stomp toward the stairs fuming but not sure myself how I'm going to handle this. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Down the stairs I go. The energy it takes to walk so loud and purposefully has somewhat calmed me by the time I reach the landing were K2 is laying sprawled across as many steps as possible. Stooomp I go over his prone body as I balance my weight on the hand rail to get over him, planning on just stepping over him like he is invisable. Not to be so easily passed by, K2 reaches out and grabs me by the ankle causing me to lose my balance. I land with a soft thud on his midrift squeezing a final little "help" from his lips. Once I realize that neither one of us is hurt, I continue to lay on top of him but start yelling "HELP" myself very loud to prove to my son how ridiculous this is. This genius parenting move backfires as K2 joins in my mantra. Now the two of us are getting into it.
K1 soon comes barreling down the stairs to see what all the ruckus is about. He hesitates only a second before throwing himself on top of us and chiming in.
"HELP". "HELP". "HELP". We take turns chanting in our call-you- out-of-the-back-forty voices. The stairwell is ringing with the echoes of our crazy laughing chorus. Imagine the sound of a pack of gaffawing, shrieking jackals as they are scared off by the fracus we are creating.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a movement. Someone's leg is pinning me down so I cannot turn my head. I know the cat is still upstairs and is not foolish enough to venture over us.
"SHUT UP", I hush my crew and wrassle my way to an upright position. There standing open mouthed is the couple from next door. They had came over, knocked, but of course we had not heard them. They had actually walked right in meaning to help.
Just goes to show you. There's a lot of crazy stuff that happens out there. Lock your doors.