When you get a second, if you've got a minute, can you spare me some time? I'll buy it and store it in my new time machine. It's a nifty box that holds time in cold storage. If I've got a few hours to kill, I shove them in this freezer. ZAP! The hours disappears for me and I have a little time up my sleeve. Which is really handy when I get busy. Deadline approaching? Too much to do? No problem! Grab some spare time out the freezer, thaw it in the microwave and ZAP! My day suddenly grows by a couple of hours.

Course, if everyone used it, things could get a little tricky. Time would become a commodity to be bought and sold. Companies would only stay competitive if they can buy lots of overtime for their workers. Each family would have one "designated worker" who starts a new job Monday morning and retires by Friday after working 40 years in five days. Think of the retirement package- four decades of income!

And who would be selling the time used by the workers? The airlines! Where else can you find thousands of people who would willingly sell hours and hours of their lives in order to avoid a tedious flight? Air travel would become free- and instant! You board the plane and ZAP you arrive. And the airline sells your time in between.

Such air travel would become a civic duty. A child's first flight would start with great pomp and ceremony. On landing, the child would be presented with a scrapbook showing everything that was accomplished using their time. Oh and the shame and humiliation if, somehow, all that time was wasted.

But imagine how this sort of thing could tear families apart. Johnny brings home his report card. Mother looks, and turns pale. Father asks nervously, "What's wrong?"(but he already knows). Dramatically, mother turns and shows Father the report card. Johnny got an "A" in maths! The parents break down in tears- their boy is going to become a worker! Oh why couldn't he have been stupid like his parents? Now they're going to have to bury him!

Then they brighten up when they remember that a week after Johnny's graduation, and just before Johnny dies of overwork, their bank accounts are going to look very healthy indeed. So the initial shock gives way to sage wisdom. "Who are we?", they tell each other, "to stand in the way of the lad's career?"

This would be an interesting world. All the workers would live at lightning speed, never seeing the results of their labors. No, that privilege would be left to the drones who would tour the centuries like hungover football fans on the bus.

"Hey look, we're passing by a period of political oppression run by a Feng Shui neo-communist matriarchy using anti-gravity technology where voting rights are only given to tall nude redheads who have proved their superiority by wining stock car races."