# You aquire the abilty to pause time for all but yourself. How do you use it? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 6, 2005, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-aquire-the-abilty-to-pause-time-for-all-but-yourself-how-do-you-use-it/311218 "2005-07-06T00:46:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-aquire-the-abilty-to-pause-time-for-all-but-yourself-how-do-you-use-it/311218/61 "2005-07-11T03:37:03Z")
In the comic series _Kingdom Come_ they showed the Flash basically deciding he would never stop running. He’s been zipping around at hyperspeed for years, stopping every crime or accident in his city but never stopping to interact with anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-aquire-the-abilty-to-pause-time-for-all-but-yourself-how-do-you-use-it/311218/62 "2005-07-11T06:03:33Z")
For money I would steal scratch offs. I would then donate all my money to help end poverty and kitten abuse. Why would I really need the money? For food I would just have to stop time and eat other people’s food in restaurants before it even got to them. I would not really need any shelter or have to pay for anything. To look like I’m not anorexic in real time I would have to spend some of my scratch off earnings when I go out. Everyone else will just assume I eat when they are not looking. I would also rob dictators and spread their money through out their country. I would mess around with girls too. I would decorate a random girl’s room with flowers before she woke up. I would drop a small vibrator in some random girl’s pants and then observe her surprise after I start time. I would also be able to guess everyone’s age, weight and shoe size. I would also stop the tape on every recording artist that lip synchs. I would steal every celebrity sex tape I could find and release them all (unless I find one of Elton John.) When I hear of calm weather, I would jet ski across the Atlantic. I would have paid people to plant fuel on certain islands so I could make pit stops. For travel by land I would need a motorcycle and would steal one from Jay Leno. Looking for Bin Laden would be tough since there is a real chance I could get lost in the dessert and die of thirst. My billion dollar check to Oxfam would save more lives anyway. I would not read, sleep, study, or do research in real time. For my career I would still study to become a lawyer. Everyone will wonder how do I find the time to spend with my future family, complete all my work on time and stay in great shape. They will also wonder how I knew so much on the history of Egyptian architecture to catch a witness in a lie, especially since the case had nothing to do with the subject and no one was expecting it to come up. Everyone will also complement me on my motorcycle. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-aquire-the-abilty-to-pause-time-for-all-but-yourself-how-do-you-use-it/311218/63 "2005-07-11T14:00:23Z")
In one of the very, very few fantasy/sci-fi novels that he wrote, John D. MacDonald did this concept beautifully. [The Girl, The Gold Watch and Everything](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0449127699/qid=1121091233/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-9015075-9041742?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) If I came into possession of Uncle Omar’s gold watch, I would probably use it in somewhat the same manner as Uncle Omar did, with a few exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-aquire-the-abilty-to-pause-time-for-all-but-yourself-how-do-you-use-it/311218/64 "2005-07-11T14:05:42Z")
::slaps head:: Sorry, **Little Nemo** , I didn’t see that you had beaten me to the punch on TGTGWAE. But didn’t that book make you wish that MacDonald had stayed in the genre? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-aquire-the-abilty-to-pause-time-for-all-but-yourself-how-do-you-use-it/311218/65 "2005-07-11T15:18:27Z")
I would drive over to New York, leave my car right in front of Yankee Stadium, and go though the whole building inch by inch. Then I’d find the pitching machine, set it up on the mound, and load it full of baseballs. I’d take batting practice till my arms hurt. Then I’d drive to every other major league park and do the same thing. If I could physically move people, I’d go to the White House and dress Dick Cheney in a French maid outfit and leave him in Bush’s lap for when he woke up. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-aquire-the-abilty-to-pause-time-for-all-but-yourself-how-do-you-use-it/311218/66 "2005-07-11T18:58:14Z")
> [@](#): > > But didn’t that book make you wish that MacDonald had stayed in the genre? Actually, MacDonald wrote a pretty fair amount of science fiction early in his career. Somewhere around I have a collection of his short SF stories. I don’t think it’s surprising he dropped out of it though; the genre changed a lot in the 1960’s and his style would have seemed old-fashioned after that. He wisely decided to concentrate on the mysteries which (in my opinion) he was better at. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-aquire-the-abilty-to-pause-time-for-all-but-yourself-how-do-you-use-it/311218/67 "2005-07-11T19:12:35Z")
**BobLibDem** , you’d be leaving an awful lot of baseballs behind home plate! 😃 Don’t forget to take pictures of Bush/Cheney and leave them on Al Gore’s desk. I’d best leave this thread alone, lest the thought police come and apply copious amounts of bleach to my brain. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![gonzoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-aquire-the-abilty-to-pause-time-for-all-but-yourself-how-do-you-use-it/311218/68 "2005-07-11T21:45:11Z")
And of course the seminal work in this genre, “classic” sitcom [Out of this world](http://www.tv.com/out-of-this-world/show/2296/summary.html) I would definately use it for sleep. Never enough hours in the day to spend 6-10 of them unconscious. But I would be deathly afraid of dieing in my sleep. What if I stranded the whole universe in stopped time forever because I wanted to get some shut-eye? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-aquire-the-abilty-to-pause-time-for-all-but-yourself-how-do-you-use-it/311218.md?page=3)