The “Five Second” Rule

Recently, in a conversation with a friend, I discovered that the “five second” rule is not only prevalent in our home country, but also in this part of the world. Apparently, doctors even believe in this magic rule, as a physician is the person who told my friend about the rule. I explained to the lady that we also have the same funny practice, but most people know that it has no validity, especially if they’ve seen “Food Detective” with Ted Allen on the Food Network. They tested the theory and found that it is generally only applicable to dry, hard candy.

A few days after we had this conversation, the same lady and I were chatting in my kitchen when she accidentally knocked a bag of Cheetos-ish chips onto the floor. Since the bag had already been opened, the little puffs shot everywhere across the room. This lady’s face was priceless. With excited big eyes she bounced down to the floor and exclaimed, “Quick, quick! Five seconds!” in the local language as she feverishly collected the scattered chips. Then, she rolled the bag back up and returned it to its place. I tried very hard to suppress my laughter and nearly forgot about the incident until I remembered the story a few days later. As I began telling P.J. and his mom about it, I discovered that he finished the bag of chips shortly after the incident without knowing they had once been strewn all over the floor. Yuck!

So…I guess the rule applies somewhat after all since he’s still with us.