Alcoholics of the Future

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a press conference today to address concerns over the recent spike in cases of alcohol-related deaths connected with time-displacement. Dr. Marcus Fiteegue, a spokesman for the CDC suggested that the number of instances of Hangover Displacement Syndrome (HDS) brought on by increased availability of a range of "Pay now, Party Later" (PNPL) devices such as Pineapple™, PaP® and Horkbefor™ are responsible.

"These products allow for easy consumption of dangerous amounts of alcohol, the effects of which are felt before any actual consumption takes place," said the spokesman. He added that college students and social drinkers were the most at risk.

PNPL devices use time-displacement theory to allow the user to feel the later, unpleasant effects of alcohol (i.e., headache, dry mouth, dizziness, nausea and other symptoms of veisalgia or "hangover") up to three days before actual consumption occurs. This allows the consumer to plan downtime to cope with these symptoms in the days ahead of a scheduled event at which one plans to engage in heavy alcohol use.

Dr. Alicia Buelbuckée, a press agent for PartyONCo, the makers of PaP (which stands for "Party after Puking"), stated that her company bore no responsibility in the deaths. "We merely manufacture a product. That product is legal, and perfectly safe when used according to directions. Not one single death in these cases has been conclusively proven to be related to alcohol poisoning. Neither PartyONCo nor its parent company, Personal Temporal Products, LLC, can or should be held responsible for the irresponsible behavior of a small number of users of our popular line of consumer goods."

According to the CDC report, Dr. Buelbuckée is correct in that this latest rash of deaths are not, in fact, directly related to alcohol poisoning. "When a person suffers from HDS," explains Dr, Fiteegue, "it isn't the alcohol that kills them—it's the time paradox."

Asked to clarify, Dr. Fiteegue said, "Let me put it this way: when you drink too much, you begin to feel the effects of alcohol, and your body begins to signal the brain to slow down. Under normal circumstances, unless you've consumed massive quantities of alcohol—which, let me remind you, is a toxin—in a short span of time, you will either cease drinking, or possibly pass out. Cases of death due to alcohol poisoning are generally rare."

"However," he continued, "after using one of these PNPL products, you feel only the pleasant effects of alcohol, and so not only are you aware that you will not have to suffer a hangover, but your judgment is impaired, and you might not remember to stop drinking. This would normally result in death by alcohol poisoning, but since the negative effects have already hit you, you should have died two or three days before you consumed so much alcohol, which means you've now created a time-shift paradox in which you died before the thing that killed you has occurred. This time paradox is the actual cause of death, but it is hardly fair nor entirely accurate to claim that neither alcohol nor the use of PNPL time-displacement products are related."

D.A.R.E. spokesman Marvin Killjoy claims that despite rigorous education efforts, nearly five out of every four children under the age of 12 have experimented with PNPL products. And though he claimed to be able to back this statistic up with hard data, he was unreachable for further comment before this article went to press. 

Spokespersons for Pineapple Products, Inc. and Hörkenpüken, GmbH (makers of Horkbefor) declined to comment for this article.