Time to Make the Jailbreak

A funny thing happened on the way to the lunchroom…

Just before you enter my company’s corporate cafeteria, there is a slight decline in the flooring, forming an upwards ramp in the opposite direction in which you are heading. I can’t really explain the change in topography, as the entire eatery facility ends up about 10 inches lower than the commerce-producing part of the building. I guess cafeteria food is supposed to taste better closer to sea level.

Speaking of which, today’s special was shrimp scampi. Go figure.

Every day (that I forget to bring lunch) I make this trip down the ramp, purchase a salad or some other acceptable substitute, pay my fare, and return back up the ramp. It’s not a steep incline where a handrail in necessary, but there is one in the middle of said ramp just in case. No one uses it, but it does help determine which way is up and which is down. And as I was about to ascend today, I noticed a catering cart on its way down. A colleague, however, didn’t grasp the whole “right of way” concept, and forced the catering cart (and pusher of said cart) to stop abruptly. With little braking. On a downward ramp. Which meant one and only one thing for the breakfast pastry tray on the bottom level of the cart:

DONUT STAMPEDE!

It all happened so fast, but I would estimate about 7 donuts blasted off the cart and continued their descent down the ramp. 1 of the leaders in the jail break, your plain non-glazed regular old donut, died a hero, as the man who cut off the cart panicked to get out of the way and stepped directly on the poor guy. The other half dozen rolled and tumbled another three feet or so, before coming to a stop: as far as they were considered, they were now free pastries.

Did somebody say free pastries?

Now, I’ve worn a lot of different hats at my time with this company, and I was quick to add the cap of “donut wrangler” to the list. I knew the catering girl (who was in complete shock over what happened) and helped clean up the mess. While she and the guy (whose loafer is now laced with donut) started to stand up drinks upright on the top shelf of the cart, I put my lunch down and collected the escapees. The cafeteria trash and tray return was to my left, and after checking with the catering girl, I threw 5 donuts into the black plastic abyss.
Sorry fellas, it was a good try.

This is a perfect case study for the world famous 5 second rule. As per Wikipedia (I can’t believe they actually have an entry on this), the rule states that “foods that have fallen to the ground will not contract any germs until five seconds have passed,” thus making them okay for retrieval and consumption.

Take the donuts. They fell and rolled on a floor which I know for a fact is cleaned nightly. The surface of the floor is industrial tile, and it is only a high traffic area around lunch time, traveled by people who work in a clean office building and have been within the walls of that building for at least three hours. The donuts, in my estimation, were on the floor for about 20 seconds. This of course, is four times the acceptable threshold for the 5 second rule, but they were under careful supervision, and it is hard to believe that any additional harm occurred in the following fifteen. Why do I ask this?

The sixth intact donut is sitting on my desk to my left.

Thoughts?