NORWICH – Everybody has a sweet tooth. Be it for comfort food or the occasional “guilty pleasure,” we all have our reasons to indulge in a sporadic sugar fix that leads us to realize, if only for a quick moment, that life really is good.

Sharon Jeffers, owner of the Parson’s Daughter at 6 West Park Place in downtown Norwich, has kept that notion alive for years. Since 2001, Jeffers has been boxing up sweet treats that keep customers returning to her little candy shop on the one-way street in the heart of the city, and her longstanding local business piqued my interest for this week’s “Punching the Clock” series.

With some of the memorable lines from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” parroting in my head, I made my way to The Parson’s Daughter with expectations of entering a “world of pure imagination,” as Gene Wilder so enigmatically sang in the movie. Admittedly, Jeffer’s shop fell short of my own unreasonable chocolate waterfall expectations; but the inside - with its vibrant wall-to-wall candy displays and other small oddities - was a welcome sight nonetheless. And in the center of it all, a luring glass display case stocked with enough assorted premium chocolates from the likes of Asher’s Chocolates and Chocolates by Leopold that make the mouth water simply by mentioning.

“It’s been a busy morning,” Jeffers told me as I slipped behind the glass case, ready to take the roll of candy shop employee for the day.