So I was logging into my e-mail account and saw an article on the 'Five Second Rule'. This immediately popped into my head. I hope you all enjoy the randomness.

health./ fitness/ articlepage.aspx?cp -documentid 100151019 --here's the url if you want to read the article. You know the drill with the spaces.

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers. As simple as that.

"I call five second rule!"

Ratchet looked behind him just in time to see Sam lunge for something that had fallen to the gritty concrete, dust it off, and plop it into his mouth. Mikaela, who was sitting besides him at the plastic patio table, just rolled her eyes before biting into her sandwich.

The medic stopped his work on the malfunctioning door to ponder this new development. While he was still relatively new on the tiny blue planet third from the sun, he knew enough on human biology that eating food from off of the floor wasn't exactly a healthy habit to develop. An innumerable amount of bacteria and other nasty microbes thrived on grimy surfaces, especially on the ground they treaded on. The only thing standing between their health and their immediate death from a foreign invader was their immune system. And said immune system was directly connected to their eating habits.

So why risk deactivation for such a tiny morsel of food? He pondered some more. Unable to get an adequate answer from his databanks, Ratchet decided that the door could wait and made his way to the young humans.

"Hey Ratch'. What's up?" Sam asked from his seat. He seemed to be in the process of dissecting another one of those black round things and licking the white stuff in-between the wafers off first. Mikaela merely looked on in question since her mouth was full.

He kneeled down to put less ease on their necks and preformed a scan on the male to see if the contaminated food was causing any trouble. So far, everything appeared to be functioning but who knew what would happen within the next ten minutes. "Samuel, why did you eat that food off of the floor?" The medic said straight out, as blunt as always.

The human looked a little taken aback and looked at his table partner in question. She only shrugged her shoulders though there was an amused smile starting to appear on her face. "Well, it would have been a waste just to leave it there. Plus, I called the five second rule." He answered after turning back to face him.

"Five second rule?" Ah, yes. He remembered the male saying that before retrieving the wayward object.

"Uh, yeah. You have five seconds to pick up food from the floor before it's 'irretrievable'."

"Two for wet, five for dry," Mikaela helpfully inputted though all it did was confuse the medic more.

"But that makes no sense. As soon as an object touches another, bacteria is immediately traded," argued Ratchet. "Such a silly rule cannot possible be effective with food."

Sam sheepishly rubbed his head while Mikaela tried unsuccessfully to hide giggles behind her sandwich. "Well…it's really more of an excuse when you put it that way. It's like getting permission to eat off the floor when there's someone else around. We know we're not technical suppose to do it."

"So why do you do it? Your health is in jeopardy whenever you partake food in such a manner."

"Think of it like this," the female said after while since her boyfriend appeared to be stumped for words, "when you drop an energon goodie, don't you still eat it after getting it back?" Sam grinned and gave her a grateful thumbs-up.

"Yes, but we usually aren't in danger of getting 'sick' afterwards. Only if we drink a bad batch of energon is there risk of deactivation from fuel poisoning."

She seemed to deflate a little after that but just as soon puffed back up. "Well, there's no real harm in doing it or else the human race would of died off eons ago. And it's not like we go around eating everything we find on the floor. Just the stuff we know where it's been." The first part may have been a bit of an overstatement but it did get her point across.

Ratchet merely arched a metal brow. "Even if you're immune systems are capable of handling such treatment, please reframe from indulging that habit around the base. I don't want you randomly 'keeling over' on me and adding to my work."

Now Sam was trying to hold in his own laughter. "Don't worry, Ratchet," he said with laughter escaping between the words, "as far as we know, nobody has ever gotten sick by using the five second rule."

"Then it would just be my luck that I have to fix you when it happens for the first time," he mumbled as he stood back up and went back to trying to fix the glitch in the door control. He resolutely ignored the muffed laughter coming from their direction and swore to himself that he'd never understand the human thought process.