by We’re all familiar with the five second rule where anything you drop on the ground can be picked up and eaten within five seconds of hitting the ground; but what about a 30 Second Rule where you can eat anything that hits the ground after waiting a full half minute before picking it up. Would you still eat something on the ground that had been there for 30 seconds? Does the 25 seconds really make that much a difference?
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At work, I don’t eat anything that’s been dropped on the floor… too much foot traffic!
At home, if something hits the floor, the dog gets it.
So basically, there’s not a second-rule for me. 😆
Carla!
I am lovin’ your antlers! I hope they stay all year long.
I will eat anything on the floor even if it’s been there for a few days. There’s nothing “down there” that isn’t all around me anyway so why waste a good piece of food?
I was in school last semester and one of my students mistakenly flipped a new piece of gum into a garbage can and I fished it out and chewed it when class dismissed and everyone stood there and stared at me like I was gross or something!
i’ll eat anything, too.
No, the antlers are only for special occasions. 😉
And, we’ll just have to agree to disagree about eating food off the floor. I have my limits! 😀
Welp, I’d better stop talking about your holiday antlers or people reading this in July are going to wonder what the heck we’re talking about!
I understand why you don’t choose to eat off the floor — I realize I am far out of the norm here; I’m just trying to figure out why.
😀
Pass over that gum on the bottom of your shoe, clem!
i would but i’m having it for lunch myself
Ewwwwww! 😮
Carla!
This is the season of giving — so if you want — I can bang on clem to send you over a hunk o’ his shoe chaw if you want to join us for lunch.
Alright… I’m going to throw up now.
I think clem’ll take first dibs on any of your vomitus that hits the floor!
Depends what it is. If it’s a piece of broccoli I’ll probably toss it but if it’s a piece of chocolate…well you just don’t waste chocolate.
Ha! I like it that you have sub-rules for what to pick up or not! I agree chocolate is easier to “brush clean” than a soggy veggie!
I saw the 5 second rule in effect when I was in high school. One of the lunch ladies spilled french fries on the floor. She looked at her coworker, who said: “Pick them up, they’ve only been on the floor for a couple of seconds. The fryer will take care of anything on ’em.” This was in front of the line of students waiting to get their food.
A friend who used to worked for a major sit-down restaurant chain that serves lots of fried fish once said you could batter a shoe, fry it, and put it on a plate and most people wouldn’t know as long as you didn’t forget the hush puppies.
I saw a segment on Mythbusters, I believe it was, that basically said that there is no grand exponential growth pattern for bacteria on food and for the most part, you’d get the same bacteria after a few seconds than after a minute or so.
On the other hand, my grandmother on my father’s side always said that the children of the gypsies were always healthier than the children of the aristocrats because the gypsy children would eat anything they found whereas the aristocratic children lived in sterile environments. I think that it almost works like homeopathic medicine. Small amounts of infection now will not get you sick but protect you from large amounts later.
And how come you haven’t mentioned a word about the transit strike, now that it has actually started? 😛
David: I skipped fries for a long time after that episode. The school had two lines. One was the hot food line with the fries. The other was a salad and soup bar. I turned into a salad and soup guy after the fry incident. We also had an open campus, so when it was warm, my friends and I would walk to the local pizza place and skip the school lunch altogether.
LJS is still going strong in my area. There are a lot of combination Kentucky Fried Chicken / Long John Silvers restaurants in Chicagoland. There are a lot of ma and pop shrimp/fish take out places here also that give LJS good competition.
Gordon: I’ve heard the same thing about today’s kids not being exposed to enough germs as a cause for the growth in asthma cases. Too much cleaning and not enough play time in the dirt might be harmful to our children’s health.
Gordon — I love Mythbusters! It is one of my favorite shows. They even try to follow a pseudo-scientific process of reckoning and I enjoy that quite a bit. I agree that dirt is a child’s friend. Young children should be exposed to as many germs (other children) as possible to build of their immune system. You only get really, really, sick when your body takes on a certain germ for the first time — it’s the Chicken Pox rule — if one person in the family gets it then that person should infect the rest of the family to get it over with ASAP! Thanks for mentioning the NYC Transit Strike! I have been holding my hands until a resolution is afoot because the truth of my original post is going to sock the workers in the gut like a brass-knuckled fist and today’s apparent “give in” by the workers and they scramble back to work without a contract is as damning as the day is long! Ooops! I’ve already said too much!
Chris — I’m sorry, but I laughed a little bit when I read what you said about not going back to the hot food line! So funny! I also think it’s great you had an open campus and you could come and go as you pleased. My campus in Junior and Senior High was always closed in order to wring every cent from the students’ pockets during lunch time. Thanks for the update on Long John Silver’s. I haven’t seen one since moving to the East Coast. Do they still sell hush puppies? We have the KFC/Taco Bell/Pizza Hut cabal here along with McDonald’s and Wendy’s…
Hush puppies are alive and well at Long John Silver’s. Here’s a link to their menu choices. http://www.ljsilvers.com/menu/default.htm
Note that they offer corn to make it a healthy eating experience.
Hey, look at that. It’s one of the top 10 yahoo questions of the year. 🙂
Dave!
I remember Arby’s when I was eating meat and you are so right that it never had any other consistency than dried shoe leather. Sure, it looked pretty on a bun, but it was grey and indistinct and in need of lots of sauce to moisten it up. It was sort of like eating tread, now that I think about it!
Gordon!
That is so funny!
Thanks for that URL!
Yeah, all of LJS’s food tastes like the oil it’s deep fried in.
Just go ahead and get in IV of lard why doncha? 😀
Carla!
Yes, that is how I remember Long John Silver’s — a delicious, and greasy, killer!
Are there other mainstream avenues beyond LJS and living in the South that provides access to the gentle hush puppy?
What’s really good is to find one of those mom-and-pop type “fish camps.” You might find a lot of fried food, but at least it has flavor, and you can get grilled or baked options. Plus, the prices are usually cheap for a ton of food.
When I was in grad school, I lived in a small town right at the SC/NC border and near Charlotte, NC. My aunt and her family lived nearby and occasionally, they’d invite me to join them for dinner at this fish camp owned and operated by one of their close friends. Good god that was some good food! Patrons got baskets of hush puppies just like you get baskets of chips at Mexican restaurants. Waitresses brought sweet tea to your table by the pitcher, and the flounder fillets where as long as your plate!
Wow… good times. 😛
Oh, I’m sweating with hunger, now, Carla!
I’ve spent a lot of time in the West, Midwest and the East Coast, but never in the deep South. It sounds like I might need to be in the need of a move soon!
One student I had years ago at the College of New Rochelle announce during class one day that he’d “only marry a woman from South Carolina because she knows how to cook and clean.”
He wasn’t being consciously derogatory or misogynistic — he was simply expressing the truth of the misplaced Southern joy in his heart.
Hee, did he have any experience with any women from SC?
I know how to cook, and I like to cook. But while I know how to clean, I rarely do so! 😀
And if you’re ever make your way to SC, you can look us up! We’ll show ya around our fine state.
Hey Carla!
Yes, he was from SC and he loved them SO MUCH! The other women hated him for loving SC women so much. He was a funny and good-looking guy. One woman said to him in class, “You’re in the Bronx now, snap out of South Carolina and look at the beautiful around you!” She was right. He might have done really well if he’d only been open to the options surrounding him.
Cooking and cleaning — as much as I hate to admit — are talents that most women have over men and when we try to help and fail it only makes things worse instead of better for the effort!
Oh, I’ll definitely look you up. If I had to retire somewhere someday it would be in a truly Southern state where the weather is warm and the people are friendly on a biological level. I’ve had my fill of Western frivolity, Midwestern coldness and East Coast yelling!
Well, the South does have its bassackwardness…
For instance, in Greenville, you can’t go to the store and buy alcohol on Sunday, but if you go eat at a restaurant within city limits, you can most likely order an alcoholic drink.
Also, starting in January, SC is finally a free-pour state. No more mini-bottles! Yay!
Carla —
I love it that Sundays are still blue. How old fashioned and lovely. I think more red states should be blue!
You’ll have to explain what “free-pour state” means. I’ve only seen mini-bottles on airplanes.
Yeah, mini-bottles were on planes and SC was (I believe) the only state where mini-bottles had to be used to mix drinks. Starting in January, bars can actually pour drinks from a large bottle.
That’s wild, Carla!
I don’t understand the reason behind requiring mini-bottles in bars.
Me either! It makes drinks incredibly strong, and for a wimp like me, that’s not good. And for drinks that require several liquors – such as my fave, Long Island Iced Tea – you have to buy a pitcher!
So I’m looking forward to free-pour! 😀
Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder if it protects you as a consumer from having your liquor watered down? If so, I like that law! Put it back!
With the way laws work around here, they probably think that free-pour would put more liquor in drinks.
I don’t mind the drinks being a little less strong. I like a some bourbon with my ginger ale, not vice versa.
I’m sure the bars love free-pour because they can lower their cost by adding water — it’s a very common practice to help stretch the booze.
If you don’t like a strong drink that’s good, but you shouldn’t have to pay the same price as the wacko across the room who likes a super-strong drink!
This is true.
My husband is of the philosophy that if he’s going to get drunk, he might as well do shots. I don’t quite agree with that, but he’s not one to get drunk anyway. I think the last time he was drunk was before we got married.
I like your hubby’s philosophy of drinking! I’m also glad he doesn’t drink much. That’s a good thing. Alcohol can really rub even good people the wrong way fast.
Yeah, he gets a little paranoid that he could end up like his dad – an alcoholic asshole. He just sits back and lets me get the drinks. And you won’t hear me complain either! 😉
Ha! I remember reading something about his Dad somewhere. He’s smart to not want to repeat that habit! You must be an entertaining drunk.
Hee… I have been told that I’m pretty funny, but really all I do is just sit and giggle a lot when something is funny.
That’s sweet, Carla! You must be a lot of fun.
I suppose… 😉
30 second rule? Anyplace I eat, besides my own kitchen has no 30 second rule, not even a 1 second rule. After going to NYC and seeing a bum peeing on a subway, everything was ruined regarding germs in public places.
Hi Rob!
Well, you know urine is actually an antiseptic. It is filled with ammonia and is the cleanest thing that can come out of a body.