By late Thursday evening, I still hadn’t settled on a topic for my weekly column. At that point it was obvious it would take some real magic to get my contribution to the opinion page finished by bedtime so it would be ready for e-mailing to the newspaper office early on Friday morning.

With time so short it was definitely izzy-wizzylet’s-get-busy time, but unfortunately, ideas were as scarce as hen’s teeth. Ummmmm, let’s see.... I closed my eyes and tried to stir up some creative juices. Instead of coming up with ideas for the column, I found my eyelids getting heavier. My mindand body were tired. The late evenings I had been putting in recently were catching up with me. I thought if I could sleep first, maybe I would have more luck writing later, but there just wasn’t time ... or was there?

Pausing a little longer, my thoughts faded to the days of my childhood and I remembered the television show, “Bewitched,” and the convenient secret talent held by Samantha, one of the main characters.

Drastic times call for drastic measures, right?

With eyelids still sealed, I tried Samantha’s wigglesquiggle nose trick just for fun. It felt funny and I could tell I wasn’t verygood at it. I waited a second and then uttered “presto chango” for good measure. My eyes popped opened to ... (drum roll here) ... the same blank computer screen that had been there before I closed them.

I yelled to my husband in the next room, “I need help. Do you know any magic words?”

A pause lasting a few seconds was interrupted with his answer.

“All I can think of is ‘shazaam.’ I think that’s the word Gomer Pyle always used.”

I could hear him in the other room repeating the word with a Gomer-like drawl.

I tried “shazaam” and still, nothing changed on the screen. At least the word was sort of fun to say.

“I can’t think of anything to write about.” I answered as my now-curious husband entered the room tosee what I was up to. “Got any ideas?”

“How about the Hogs versus Alabama football game - that’s big news.” He offered.

“No thanks,” I mumbled and half-way smiled.

There are good reasons that I don’t write about football. My brain doesn’t seem to be wired the right way to understand the game. Even when my own son played, I never knew what was going on.

I considered myself a successful spectator if I could just pick him out on the field. Luckily, I always recognized his shoes - well, except for that night in Anderson when he borrowed a pair from someone else.

OK, maybe I will write about football sometime, but I don’t have time to think about that now. I have a deadline to meet!

I picked up my cell phone and called my oldest grandson. He knowsseveral good card tricks, so I thought maybe he’d be able to help me make a 600-word newspaper column appear out of thin air.

“Do you know any magic words?” I asked when he answered the phone.

“No.”

His answer was short and I took it as a hint that maybe I had interrupted something really important like a video game. I made a little joke about “please” and “thank-you” being the magic words but he didn’t seem to be listening. Not one to give up after the first try, I pressed him a little harder and he finally came up with “allakazam.”

“Good one,” I said. “Do you know how to spell that?”

“Al-a-ka-zam.” He repeated the word slowly, one deliberate syllable at a time as though that answered my question.

“OK, thanks. Can I talk to your mom?” I asked,realizing the boy was not going to be the creative assistance I needed.

Andrea was a little more help advising me to try “bippity-boppity boo,” “a la peanut butter sandwiches,” or even “hocus pocus, fish bones chokus,” as a last resort.

I decided to take her suggestions and even threw in my own “abracadabra.”

And this time the results were amazing! Right there on my computer screen, before my very eyes, it appeared! Next week’s column all written and in final form.

Whew! That was a close one. I was thinking for a minute there I might have to pull a rabbit out of my hat and just call it good.

Annette Rowe is a freelance writer and a speechlanguage pathologist at Siloam Springs High School.

She may be reached by email at awalkinthepark50 @ yahoo.com.

Opinion, Pages 6 on 09/29/2010