The Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, and the Marlboro Man

My friend Dave used to smoke cigarettes. He smoked for a long time, like 20 years. Maybe that's not as long as my Grandpa smoked, but being that I'm 31 years old that would mean Dave smoked for 2/3 of my life. I think that's a long time. One day he became really sick. It was like he got Mono, though the doctors didn't say it was Mono they just said he was really sick. During that time he put smoking on hold. Can you imagine smoking when you have a sinus infection, pulling a deep drag and trying to blow it out your nose like a movie star? I can imagine the smoke being pretty pissed off after realizing its decided path was a dead end. It would certainly make you pay for your mistreatment. Dave was not so cruel, he kept his cigarettes in the package while the pathways were closed for construction. The only thing is, he was sick for a really long time. So while he was suffering at the hands of his sickness he was also, without knowing it, kicking his long time smoking habit. After Dave felt better, he began eating normal food again. To his surprise the food tasted different. He said the taste had more color now, more life. I guess smoking dulled the taste of food.

I bet Dave's experience was like in "The Wizard of Oz" when the Dorothy and Todo arrive in the Land of Oz and the film turns to color. That would be really weird to have your life go from black and white to full Technicolor. I wonder how that would feel. I think I would be super excited at first, like when the whole gang in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" enters Willy Wonka's lair with exuberance, searching the ins and outs of the place. I would want to go look at everything, one by one, first from a distance then as close as I could possibly get without my vision blurring. After a while though, I think I might feel a sense of grief. I mean all this time up until now I have been living in black and white when all along this beautiful color version was right around the corner, just a Tornado away. Then I might even feel sad or at least concerned that my friends and family may not know about this new land with so much more life than back home. I think I would certainly begin racking my brain as to how I would be able to create a bridge between black and white and color. I mean, how does one build a bridge between colors? Its not like you can just hire a government contractor to build another Narrows Bridge that goes from gray scale to the Pantone fan deck. The only reason I was even able to get there was because tornado came while I was shut out of the storm cellar, which I was scared about not to mention feeling a little sense of rejection. Then, once I did finally did find a place to hide, the tornado picked up the entire house I was taking refuge in and swirled it around for a while which scared the shit out of me again and caused me to whack my head and pass out. When I awoke the house had been placed back on the ground and as I stepped out my life changed forever - Oz. Simple as that. I don't know how to make a tornado!!! And even if I did, I wouldn't know how to control it to make it pick up a house that I somehow convinced all of my family and friends to be inside at the same time! Its a good thing the Land of Oz and my man Bill's Chocolate Factory don't actually exist.