Admit it…every time you open a candy bar you’re half hoping you’re going to see a shimmer of gold. Okay that might not be true for my Baby Boomer dad who honestly just wants the chocolate but for Generation X and younger I bet it’s true.

Even “I read Spiderman and sci/fi ONLY when I was little” superior snowflake Blacklight peeks for a Golden Ticket when he unwraps one of my Hershey’s bars he’s “liberated” from the freezer. Because a Golden Ticket is a passport to adventure, wonder and CHOCOLATE…ALL THE CHOCOLATE. Cue my dad perking up and holding his hand out for a chocolate bar.

So any wonder that while curled up sick on Mr Couch recently I shoved aside the stack of trashy classics featuring impossibly beautiful women and their amazing adventures in favor of something different? That’s where Charlie and the Chocolate Factory comes in.

You’re bundled up on Mr Couch, wind whipping fiercely outside and seeping into your apartment because your apartment has the suckiest windows EVER and there’s ANOTHER delay holding up the building wide window replacement and Blacklight is making you chicken soup and asking if you’re EVER going back to work…in a way, you feel a bit of kinship with young Charlie Bucket, living in a tiny two room house riddled with cracks and grandparents and nothing to eat but soup, soup and more soup.

Even though you have almost an entire bag of Hershey’s Kisses in the freezer and more chocolate chip cookies than working brain cells at the moment, you can totally understand the way Charlie savors his yearly chocolate bar. Why can’t a nice boy like Charlie get a Golden Ticket unlike those evil little brats who win? Because really? Veruca Salt needs a Golden Ticket? On what frosted pop tart planet?

So you snuffle and reach for the Klennex when Charlie gets his Golden Ticket thanks to a dollar he found in the street. And when Willy Wonka gives Charlie and Grandpa Joe their own huge silver mugs of fresh waterfall mixed chocolate from the river because Wonka realizes that something isn’t right in their world.

And giggle evilly when Violet swells ups like a balloon. And outright cackle when Veruca meets Willy Wonka’s squirrels (any chance I can borrowify some of them there squirrels for the children next door?).

Thank goodness colds go away. And thanks heavens for Roald Dahl setting down a charming tale that even childhood flashbacks of Gene Wilder singing can’t ruin!