When you think of Allen Tate, you typically think of one thing: real estate.

You don't think of a teenage boy who can produce an eardrum-piercing shriek that sounds like a fire alarm.

And yet this Allen Tate - a Charlotte Latin sophomore and grandson of the founder of the Carolinas' largest real estate company - is on the verge of getting 15 minutes of fame thanks to his super-high-volume impression.

On Wednesday, "Late Show with David Letterman" flew the 16-year-old and his mother, Sha, to New York City, where he will compete to be one of three people featured tonight during the CBS talk show's "Stupid Human Tricks" segment.

Tate offers a pretty simple description of his trick: "Basically, I make a really high-pitched noise with my voice, hit my throat with my hand, and it sounds like an alarm."

He discovered the talent while goofing around with friends on a church mission trip; then after letting it rip at Latin during his freshman year, it became a hit.

"The seniors ... loved it. They told me to do it at basketball games, and they called me 'the secret weapon,'" Tate says. "I started doing it at basketball games, during free throws and just making people miss shots."

"Late Show" has a long history of featuring regular people who can do irregular things. Hop on YouTube and search "Stupid Human Tricks" and you can see a girl who can play the fiddle while bouncing on a pogo stick, a guy who can kick himself in the head 30 times in 30 seconds, and a woman who can rub her eyeballs by putting her fingertips up under her eyelids.

Sha Tate, who says Allen is a big fan of the segment, emailed the show last winter about her son's talent. About three months ago, the Tates were asked to submit a video of him performing. Last week, they got the invitation. This morning, Allen - who also is being accompanied in New York by his younger sister, Carter - is meeting with show staffers for a final audition.

Ryan Williams, Letterman's talent coordinator, says: "We bring in more people than will actually make it on the show ... to just build a safety net." But even if Tate doesn't make the cut, it's likely Williams and his staff will have a ringing in their ears for most of the rest of the day.

"It is really just unbelievable how much it sounds like a fire alarm," Sha Tate says. "We took my mother-in-law out to dinner at Charlotte Country Club for her birthday and we wanted to let her hear it. So after dinner, we walked outside in the parking lot and he did it. Now, this is with the door shut and everything. The manager of the country club flew out and was just panic-stricken, looking everywhere.

"Allen said, 'I was just doing something with my throat. It's not a real alarm,' and the guy said, 'Oh, my God, I was getting ready to evacuate the building. I thought the fire alarm had gone off!'"