Remember the good old days back in high school when the girls gathered on the bleachers to sing verses of “Summer Lovin'” and jumpsuit-clad boys danced in unison in their auto classes?

Maybe that didn’t happen at your school, but there is a world where it did.

Musicals … the imaginary realm where you can be in the middle of a dinner date/drive-in/farmer’s market and suddenly belt out all your troubles in improvised rhymed lyrics. The people around you not only join in, but sweep you into a perfectly choreographed dance routine.

Today we escape reality with a Bud Light and the creative genius of Jim Carrey and chastise classical musicals as boring and cheesy.

Whereas the other would say that musicals are the entertainment of the baby-boomer era or the genre of “The Little Mermaid,” I contend that any movie with a song and dance melody may instantly be transformed into superior entertainment.

How much better would “Austin Powers” have been if Mike Myers confessed his love with a tear-jerking aria to a wide-eyed Elizabeth Hurley atop a balcony? If Doctor Evil and Mini-Me donned orange face paint and sang a recurring ditty Oompah-Loompah style throughout the film?

Think about it.

If life were a musical, political debates would be duets and street violence would be the gentile play between The Sharks and The Jets. Today’s world is dark; musicals are sunshine and love.

The next time you reach for an Adam Sandler comedy to drown your sorrows, rethink your choice and pick up a Rodgers and Hammerstein instead. Or else skip down Del Playa singing “I Feel Pretty” and see if anyone joins in.

Daily Nexus assistant campus editor Sarah Gorback sings and dances on her way to class, but oddly remains silent in the shower.