Thursday, April 17, 2014

The five second rule gone wrong

So we've all heard of the five-second rule. Wherein if you drop a piece of food, it's fine to eat it if you grab it within five seconds. I am a believer in this rule. Rob is not. To be fair, as he is visually impaired I can see why he doesn't subscribe to this theory. He doesn't allow the children to do so either and thinks it's gross when I do it. But I do it anyway. Because let's face it...as a busy mum, if I am grabbing a piece of chocolate on my way through the kitchen and it slips out of my sleep-deprived fingers and hits the kitchen floor- well, that's my chocolate and I am going to eat it, damn it.

However, I may have recently taken things too far. 

It was last Friday night and the kids and baby were all asleep in bed so Rob and I were enjoying some grown-up time. (By this I mean sitting on the couch in our pjs watching half an hour of a movie before I declare I am too tired and head to bed at 8pm. The wild life of motherhood.) To complete the cosy scene, my cat Pesto was nestled against my legs, purring like no tomorrow. He is much cuddlier in the colder months, leading me to feel slightly used. 

On this particular night, Rob and I felt peckish so he went to raid the pantry for something vaguely resembling junk food. It being the end of the week, I didn't hold out much hope. He returned with a Tupperware container half full of cheese flavoured rice crackers that we put in the children's lunch boxes. Crunchy, cheesy, vaguely resembling junk food. As he put the open container on the couch between us, Pesto leaned forwards with interest to sniff at it but then decided it was too much effort and settled back against my legs. 

We crunched into them as we continued watching (look, I just said it was 'a movie' but we may have been watching Titanic. Don't judge us) and all too soon they were gone. Drat. I was starting to enjoy the strangely orange cheese flavour. I got up and left the room to wash my hands and when I returned saw a piece of cracker where I had been sitting, which I had obviously dropped. 

Completely without thinking, I grabbed it and put it in my mouth, only to discover to my dawning horror that it was soggy. 

Soggy. 

Cat....interested....sitting next to me...oh God. 

Yep, I now had a piece of cracker in my mouth that the cat had tasted and then spat out. I guess he didn't like the powdered orange cheese. 

After I ran to the sink and spat it out myself, I explained to Rob what had happened as he had only heard my noises of horror. He immediately began laughing uproariously while telling me it served me right and that it would teach me. 

Has it? Maybe. Probably not. But next time I will be more careful and make sure the five second rule is actually only five seconds. I love my cat, but that love doesn't extend to eating food he has had in his mouth and then rejected. No way. 

2 comments:

  1. Hahaha! That is so good. I don't think I've ever accidentally shared food with one of my pets but I definitely subscribe to the 5 second rule. Up until about the 20 second mark...

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  2. HAHA this made me actually laugh out loud!!

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