Sometimes, it's useful to quickly set/clear a timeout that's attached to an element.

jquery.setTimeout.js

/*
 * setTimeout
 * 
 * Sometimes, we want to set a timeout and associate the timeout with
 * an element.  This is essential for operations that open menus, popups
 * flyovers, etc.
 * 
 * Shad Reynolds
 * http://shad.github.com
 */ 
$.fn.extend({
  setTimeout: function (fn, time) {
    this.each(function () {
      var elem = $(this), timeout = elem.data('timeout');
      clearTimeout(timeout);
      if (time) {
        timeout = setTimeout( function () {
          fn.call(elem);
          elem.data('timeout', null);
        }, time);
        elem.data('timeout', timeout);
      }else{
        elem.data('timeout', null);
      }
    });
  },
  clearTimeout: function () {
    $(this).setTimeout();
  }
});