The Five Second Rule

If you have ever worked in a restaurant, you have no doubt heard about the five second rule. That is the rule that states that anything from a piece of fruit to a hamburger patty that has rested joyously for less than five consecutive seconds on the floor is NOT suspect. This is to say that it is still edible and by default, still servable. Obviously, the health department would disagree with that. Just to be a good steward of the public I would pop the object in question back on the grill for an extra thirty seconds or so for good measure. Surely four or five hundred degrees would kill any lingering germs. Or maybe it won't, what the heck do I know. There is no sense taking any chances with the likes of E. coli or trichinosis. Trichinosis cannot be fun to have, it's not even fun to say. Speaking of questionable sanitation, many people never miss the opportunity to give what for to the Waffle House for their relaxed sanitation methods. But it should be pointed out that certain food infractions could never happen in that establishment such as (the Mc Donald's nightmare we always hear about) spitting on hamburger buns. That could never happen at WH because all the cooking happens in plain view. Their food is not health food; in fact, it's the opposite of health food. Have you ever seen that video where the guy puts a Big Mac meal in the top of a closet for six months only to return and find it totally unchanged? This means that even mold is smart enough to realize it's not real food.

Waffle House uses a product called Whirl to cook everything on the flattop; in fact, it is swimming in it. I don't know if Whirl has ever been identified as a man killer, such as it is. But it should no doubt rest happily atop the food pyramid being the nutritional equivalent to DDT. Not even full-on lard could block arteries as fast as Whirl. But at least Waffle House is honest about their nutritional intensions. You might even be served your food by a toothless felon, but its good old American grub and they are loud and proud to serve it. The whole staff has memorized the words to Gretchen Wilson's song RED NECK GIRL, and they are always game to prove it.

The five second rule should apply also at home and therefore to our lives. There are many people who would disagree with me about this fact publicly but privately relent simply for the red mark it might leave on their reputation. Trust me people, reputations are made to be tarnished. These are the same people who still buy hand sanitizer by the case and wear masks in their car when they are alone. This confounds me, is this to keep from catching germs that they might pass on to themselves? Isn't that the medical equivalent of a double negative? What exactly is the thought process there? I should also share with you (being a bit of an expert on the N-1 masks) that they are as worthless as tits on a boar hog. They are for appearances only; that gaping hole on the top left side alone should prove my point. In other words, you are not protecting ANYONE from ANYTHING, but at least you have made the liberal masses feel better when they are caught feeling up the tangerines in Whole Foods while they figure out where to store their yoga mats and crying over spilled cucumber water. The hippy thing that connects itself to new store chains is not made up, it's a thing. If you doubt my premise hit a Trader Joes some Saturday afternoon.

My wife is a bit of a germ-a-phoebe as well, and I do things to freak her out on purpose like using a hotel phone book as a place to rest a sandwich or running my hands over well-worn areas like handrails and then licking my fingers. I say I do this to annoy her but mostly I do it to prove a point. Our bodies defense systems were put in place to save us from just these kinds of intruders, like any system in the body they still need a workout once in a blue moon, or they will die like a muscle that never gets used. It always cracks me up when I hear people take their kids to the park and say things like "okay, but don't get dirty." Kids were made to get dirty, it's good for them. And no amount of Purell Hand Sanitizer in the world will keep them from getting the occasional bug.

We all know someone who is convinced they are dying at every turn in life. We also know people who no matter how sick they might be will always play life like they are as right as rain. I think it was grandpa that used to make the joke about scraping the cancer off his arm and using it for fish bait. The point is this, NONE OF US ARE GETTING OUT OF HERE ALIVE; that's a universal truth I urge you to try to refute. We will all have to tell the tale in the afterlife of our earthly demise. Do you want to tell the boring version where you drifted off to sleep and never woke up or that you licked the floor of a movie theater? Take some risks in life folks, because the amount of time we are on this earth is the blink of an eye. It would be like putting one drop of water in the ocean. At some point we will all contract something fatal. This puts us all in the same boat, pre-terminal. Any one of us could get T-boned by a Perter Built tomorrow and end up at the undertakers in a match box. Unfortunately, the only sure thing in life is death. And to think all this time my wife said I didn't have the makings of a life coach.

Let's be honest, none of us holds the superpower to cheat death. Having said that, the other thing we have no power over (but we all wish we did) is aging. There is no secret sauce to getting older, all you have to do is lay your head on your pillow, catch a few Z's, awaken to your alarm in the morning, and boom, you are a day older. You didn't even have to try; it just happened naturally. I figured up not long ago that I have smacked my alarm clock better 15,000 times since my eighteenth birthday. I often wonder why such phenomenon seem so perplexing to me, I also wonder why nobody on my family tree ever warned me about it. No doubt we will one day all find ourselves walking by a mirror and saying audibly, "WHO IS THE OLD GUY?" Sorry folks, I don't pull punches. I suppose that makes this the church of the painful truth and me (by pure default) your high priest. I'm only too happy to oblige.