It was magic.

"You know, if you say electric doors, it will come." She told T at a midtown bus stop.

He had been running circles around us, this lady and me, pleading for "dat darn bus to finawy come" and asking more whens, whys and how comes than any of us patient bus-waiters could handle. I mostly can never blame the kid, he does pretty well for being only four. The problem is that he looks six and has the mind of a man so I expect a lot from him. We had been parading across town for hours in search of a free flu shot, which we found, but why is it always so much harder to get home than it is to get there? Oh yeah, probably because I still have a dumb-phone and I always forget to Google map my way home before we leave. The shot was a cinch, but walking up and down streets pretending for T's sake that we were not totally lost, now that took some time. Yep, that's life in the big city people. Glamorous, yeah? There was also a little New York Public Library detour, and a walk through Winter Village in Bryant Park so yes, I do believe that T's circles were being run out of pure desperation, and starvation, and self-induced sleep deprivation (darn that time change!)

But as soon as she brought up this idea of magic words it was as if the whole world stopped. Well, maybe not the whole world (we live in a busy place, you know) but T's feet, those babies were immediately frozen like a statue. His mind on the other hand? I could literally see the wheels spinning through those big brown eyes, which were of course glued to our new magic-speaking friend.

"You shouldn't tell him that, it's not true." said a red-lipped lady who covered her silver bob with a ball cap. She was not amused that the bus was tardy, nor by our new friends magical antics.

"Oh, but it is true," she said with a grin. T stared at her, utterly mesmerized by every word that left her mouth. "But you have to believe. It doesn't work for adults, but if kids say those magic words, then poof! Here comes the bus."

I could see it in his face: my old-soul-in-a-small-son wanted to believe in the magic she was spouting. He wanted to say those silly words and prove her right, or maybe wrong, well maybe he just wanted an excuse to say those silly words. But he just couldn't get himself to do it. Maybe it was embarrassment? He was probably over-thinking it, he's awfully practical. And sometimes his people skills, well, they're not so hot. He slammed his big body into the stroller and sulked while the red-lipped lady and I chatted about how my neighborhood used to be swarming with "hookahs." Yes, hookers--her conversation choice.

By this time we had been waiting for a good while and people were getting antsy. And crabby. Oh, and lest you think this story is only about T, Everett was there as well screaming at the top of his lungs about how he wanted some "farties." You know, Smarties.

Our new friend, who was now super late for a meeting, was about to hail a cab when from the stroller we heard a few little squeaks that faintly resembled two magic words: electric doors.

She was the one that saw it, the M7 heading right towards us. With a wink in T's direction she said, "See, works every time!"