As far as I know, I may have only ever seen one episode of Wild Wild West, but it affected me for the rest of my life.

In the episode, one of the characters had a pocket watch that could stop time.

I would later see this idea a few other places, including an episode of Duck Tales, but Wild Wild West introduced it to me.

Other kids might have fantasized about being able to fly, or being super-strong, or whatnot, but I wanted that watch.

Elementary school, junior high, high school, I wanted that watch. Even into college, and sometimes now… lately, the fantasy pops up mostly when I’m in the movie theater and there’s some ass-witted rudenick who actually answers their cell phone and talks into it during the film. I’d stop time, take the phone, chuck it out the exit door, and re-start time.

Back in the day, it was things like studying last-minute for a test (it wouldn’t have occurred to me to stop time during the test to look up the answers), getting off the home-bound bus when it passed my house on the opposite side of a busy main street instead of having to wait until the bus ran its whole route and came back on the proper side of the street…

Dealing hilarious and humiliating come-uppances to bullies or recurring enemy.

Then there was stopping time to run rampant through department stores and malls. Not stealing stuff, but treating the world like my own private amusement park.

And stopping time in creative ways so as to woo, romance, or seduce girls.

And, of course, the old standby to which various fantastical powers have always been put: seeing girls naked.

Time bored during class could be spent thinking up endlessly intricate pranks.

In college, it was more likely to be stopping time to get sleep I badly needed, or buying extra time to finish a paper.

And there was this horrid cow-bitch down the hall, Rehka, who would sit in the dorm hallway for hours yakking to her friends at times when people might well want to sleep. I tried the usual ways, asking politely, asking repeatedly, suggesting that they might move into her room, which was less than two feet away, to continue their incessant blabbering. Talking to the RA, who was a nice girl, but way too nice (wimpy) to be an RA, and therefore useless.

When all that failed, and the harpy hose-beast was out there yakking in the halls, I’d stop time, belt the screeching troll in the mouth, and then get a good night’s rest.

In high school I’d spend all sorts of time trying to figure out the logistics of the stopwatch. Obviously, it wasn’t stopping time — I was moving unbelievably faster than anyone else.

So there were kinks that had to be worked out.

If I was moving faster than everyone else, then if I actually hit someone while time was stopped (or even tapped them on the shoulder), I could injure or even kill them.

So there had to be a thin energy field around my body, a kind of time-buffer that kept my tremendous speed from causing unwanted casualties.

Also, if I spent too much time using the stopwatch, I could age prematurely. So there had to be a device that reversed that process while I slept.

Little things… like a modification so an outline of my body would remain in the air, so that I could stop time, do something, and return to the exact spot. Otherwise, observers might see my body or limbs suddently "jump" from one place to another.

And it would be boring being in fast-time by myself all the time, so there had to be another modification where I could touch people, click a button, and bring them into time-sync with me.

Anyone else happen to remember that episode? It’s one of those things that’s so far back and hazy that I could almost feel I made it up.