5-second rule is now the 10-second rule: mother

 A mother in the capital has introduced a new rule in her household, instructing her three young children to eat off the floor whenever possible.  

"The kids used to bring up something they called the 'five-second rule' whenever they dropped some food on the floor, or when their youngest sister, just two years old, dropped her food. They would then scoop it up and eat it, claiming that they had picked it up within five seconds, and that the dirt on the floor did not have enough time to attach itself to the morsel," said Adiba Begum, a homemaker.

She said sha had a tough time telling the children to stop following this western pop culture trend that was really meant as a joke and had little basis in science.

"But that was till eight or nine months ago. When they picked food up off the floor I took it out of their hands, as any parent would do, and threw it away."

But then the prices started rising, and then they kept increasing, and then they just wouldn't stop increasing.

"That's when I revisited the five-second rule, and I dug further into it," she said.

"Turns out, there was some scientific basis to the rule after all. You see, the food has to settle on the ground after it is dropped. At first it bounces up, crumbs fly everywhere, then it comes to a stop. It is only then that the dirt and grime on the floor can attach itself.

"What's more, I did a bit of research on my own. I studied science in school, and now I know that instead of 5 seconds, food is safe to pick up off the floor up to 10 seconds after it's dropped. This is a fortunate discovery as it means less wastage, and that is a valuable thing in this throwaway culture of ours.

"The kids used to bring up something they called the 'five-second rule' whenever they dropped some food on the floor, or when their youngest sister, just two years old, dropped her food. They would then scoop it up and eat it, claiming that they had picked it up within five seconds, and that the dirt on the floor did not have enough time to attach itself to the morsel."

"What? No, it really has nothing to do with saving money amid rising prices. We live very comfortably. There is food everywhere," Adiba said, her voice going up three pitches.

Adiba said she told her children of the new development, but for some reason, now the children are suspicious and won't eat food off the floor even if it had been lying there for less than five seconds.

'COOKING AT HOME SAME AS ORDERING IN!'

Elsewhere, in a shocking development, a man (our effort to break gender stereotypes) was crushed after discovering that cooking at home would put the same strain on his wallet as ordering in.

"As a bachelor hishabe, I had been using vouchers and ordering from shops near my home since I started living on my own," said Akramul Huda, a private service holder in the capital's Mirpur area.

"Soon I found that I could barely make it to the end of the month eating in this manner, even if it was once a day," he said.

"So, I took the initiative to learn some cooking on YouTube, and thinking my financial problems would be solved, went out to buy two weeks' worth of ingredients. Imagine my devastation when, after buying everything on my list, I realised that the total came to the same amount if I had ordered the food over the next two weeks," Akramul said.

Star Satireday has learnt that following this development, restaurants around the capital have started raising their prices.