5 Second Rule

When is it ok to observe the five second rule and when should it be ignored? Drop a donut on anything but poop, and the five second rule applies. Drop homemade bread, thick with margarine and grape jelly on anything but poop, and the five second rule applies. Drop anything on poop and the five second rule is forgotten and replaced by the "Yuck" rule. Seriously. Yuck.

But how does the five second rule apply to a public laundromat? I'm drying clothes now, and had the errant sock make its attempted escape in transit from the washer to the wheeled basket. As I retrieved them and placed them in the basket, I wondered about the five second rule. The floor here is fairly clean. Well, clean-ish. Will putting the sock into a dryer and setting the heat gauge to the highest temperature kill any stray germs which may have been picked up from the floor? Do we have to worry about the five second rule as it applies to socks? I mean, really, as gross as my socks get at the end of the day from my stinky feet, do a few patrons germs really matter all that much? Perhaps the five second rule applies only to food? If you dropped a baby on the floor, do you have to pick it up within five seconds, or just pick it up before your spouse comes back into the room? If they're in the bathroom, you may have ten or fifteen minutes, so you'd be ok there.

If you drop an unopened beer on the ground, the last thing you want to do is open it within five seconds. In fact, the longer you wait to open that sucker, the better.