If you could stop the world for an hour

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Sci-fi fan or not, there probably isn't a person on the planet who hasn't dreamed of having the ability to stop time like Zack Morris or Hiro from Heroes. Hiro usually used the ability to get himself out of some life-threatening situation, but let's face it: If you're reading Cracked, chances are you don't want to use it as a life preserver so much as to convince your friend that his apartment is haunted by wet-willy-giving ghosts.

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"Operation Put a Spider on Everyone has been completed. Unfreezing time in 5, 4 ..."

So What's the Problem?

For starters, boredom. You know what weakness computers, cars, televisions, phones, and the Internet share? They all need time. That's because anything electronic depends on electrons to function, and quick as they may be, electrons still need some time to get from point A to point B. So that puts most modern conveniences completely out of the picture -- when you stop time, you're effectively hurling yourself back into the dark ages. So much for using your new superpower to catch up on all that Internet PICS surfing you've been putting off.

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"I should have just bought a goddamn Hustler."

But let's make up some rules of our own to get around that snag. Let's say you can bring things with you -- anything you're touching when you activate your power comes into stopped time with you, people and objects alike. How confident are you that you'll never forget anything? Because if you zap back into normal time and forget to bring your stuff back with you, you're stranding it in stopped time. In the seconds it takes you to realize what a dumbass you are, an eternity will have passed in stopped time. By the time you get back, your stuff will be a pile of dust. And if you show off your new power to friends and forget to hold their hands when you come back, you've just sentenced them to everlastingly plead with what they perceive as a frozen you to come back for them ... until they die of starvation, that is.

If that's not enough to give you pause, keep in mind that every time you use your power, you're basically pausing physics for everything except you, effectively shortening your unstopped life. So you may get all the naps and breaks you could possibly need, but you'll also have to explain to your friends and family why you look 80 when you're only 45.

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"I'll never live to see my children graduate, but at least I had plenty of time to spank it."