Yes, it’s been a while, but I’ve been busy. I’ve spent the last several weeks buried deeply in research (and dry roasted peanuts for a few hours last week). It was all for a reason though, a very important and interesting reason. On a night out circa the recently passed Christmas I noticed something on somebody’s packet of cigarettes. I couldn’t be certain it was true though, as I was fairly hammered and don’t even remember forgetting how I got home. Thus I leapt into research mode and put the website on hold. Sprinting from library to library I found all of the evidence I needed to be sure of what I had come across. Eventually I got it:

The warning labels on cigarette packets still make sense when you replace the word ‘smoking’ with the word ‘time’.

Luckily, I have my research to back up this shocking statement. The best way to prove it is through example, so we’ll take the most basic smoking warning:

Smoking Kills

This is one of the most common ones found on a packet and is renowned for its simplicity. Then we come along and replace the word ‘smoking’ with ‘time’:

Time Kills

Bingo! It still makes sense. Of course, it isn’t just that example. I was looking this up for a long time and I’ve got more where that came from, such as:

Time Causes Ageing of the Skin

Again true! The even more shocking part I found was that not only does it continue to make sense when you make the switch; some of them become quite funny. Check out the following hilarious new warnings:

Your Doctor or Your Pharmacist Can Help You Stop Time

Get Help to Stop Time: Consult Your Doctor

That’s right, you can now stop time! Who can help you do this? Stephen Hawking? The entire staff of CERN? Zombie Einstein? Nope, you just need to talk to that bloke behind the counter selling you those extra strength sedatives you’ve been taking to make the pain stop. Those guys studying electrons spinning around in circles won’t have a chance to help you stop time, but the nice man who took your rupturing appendix out of your body last week can. I plan to ask my dentist next week about breaking the light speed barrier. Apparently there’s also a telephone service set up to help deal with the stopping of time, presumably run by a council of doctors and pharmacists.

Get Help to Stop Time: Callsave Quitline 1850 201 203

Unfortunately some do not appear to make sense upon first glance. They must be looked at deeper until the true meaning can be figured out, such as this one:

Time is Highly Addictive, Don’t Start

If something is highly addictive then you would be using it all the time, like nicotine or heroin or Dr Pepper. So with time, when are you never using it? Time is always passing for you. Thus, you are highly addicted. According to our first observation, time kills, thus you shouldn’t start. Not only does time simply kills, but it does more if you read the next warning:

Time Can Cause a Slow and Painful Death

Obviously you really don’t want to start on time. The stuff is just no good and it’s everywhere. It’s in our neighbourhoods, in our schools, and in our neighbour’s hoods. These warnings show us that time does a lot to our health. There’s some stuff here that you really don’t want happening to you. It’s why you should be consulting that magical doctor of yours.

Time May Reduce the Blood Flow and Cause Impotence

Time Causes Fatal Lung Cancer

Stopping Time Reduces the Risk of Fatal Heart and Lung Diseases

Time Can Damage the Sperm and Decreases Fertility

Time Clogs the Arteries and Causes Heart Attacks and Strokes

OK, so the last one doesn’t make as much sense as the others, but you’ve got to take these warnings with a couple of grains of salt and a dash of pepper. Sometimes when you insert the word time it just becomes a little too abstract to make sense of:

Time When Pregnant Harms Your Baby

The problem here is that in the original warning ‘smoking’ was being used as more of a verb than a noun, as it was in all of the other warnings that made total sense. Variants of the word time need to be used for situations where the meaning of ‘smoking’ is different or even when the exact word ‘smoking’ itself is not used. Instead of using ‘time’ here we could use ‘timing’:

Timing When Pregnant Harms Your Baby

Here it makes much more sense. When you’re timing you are keeping track of time, keeping your eye on the time. Being more stressed if things are late, like your baby. The more stressed you are the worse it is for the baby. See how things are still making sense? There are even more variants on the word time to be found. The word ‘smokers’ can be replaced by the word ‘timers’.

Timers Die Young

Timers Die Younger

Timers, people who always keep track of time, are of course more stressed and more susceptible to heart attacks and other bad things already seen in the warnings mentioned earlier. As for the two similar warnings above, the two have been spotted to a near equal degree on cigarette, cigar and tobacco warnings. Why two warning that are so similar were ever created in the first place is the only thing that I wasn’t able to figure out in all of my research, no matter how many books I cried at.

Another variation on the word ‘smoking’ found in warnings is ‘smoke’. This one was a real doozey to deal with. I couldn’t come up with any ‘time’-variant that would make sense to replace the word ‘smoke’ in the collected warnings. Eventually, after a long bath involving a Sizzling Bacon Pot Noodle I was struck by inspiration. I had the following two warnings:

Protect Children: Don’t Make Them Breathe Your Smoke

Smoke Contains Benzene, Nitrosamines, Formaldehyde and Hydrogen Cyanide

The word I had come up with? Clocks. It fit perfectly with both warnings and any subsequent warnings I had imagined at the time. Take the first for example:

Protect Children: Don’t Make Them Breathe Your Clocks

This is an obvious one if ever I’ve seen one. Clocks just don’t go down well in the lungs, even if they’re really small. The oxygen content is just not high enough to provide the body with enough of the life giving element. Trying to make children breathe clocks is just a form of dirty, dirty abuse. Those things are choking hazards.

Clocks Contain Benzene, Nitrosamines, Formaldehyde and Hydrogen Cyanide

OK, so I’ll admit that I’m not sure what clocks are generally made of. Most of the clocks I’ve come across in my life have involved plastic to a certain degree, with the possibility of some sort of metal too. However, I find no problem in making at least two clocks that contain the substances naming in the warning. It wouldn’t be a wise thing to do, but I’m almost one hundred percent certain that there are at least twelve clocks worldwide that include these chemicals. If someone can find proof that there aren’t clocks that contain all four of these chemicals then I’ll make a pair of them myself and hide them in a large, lead-lined vault. The important part to remember in all of this is that those cigarette warnings are not only telling you about the dangers of smoking, but also the dangers of time and existence itself. Remember:

Time Seriously Harms You and Others Around You