Have you ever noticed that everything seems to take about three minutes to microwave? It’s like the universe collectively decided that three minutes is the ideal time to nuke anything from leftover pizza to frozen potstickers to a frozen burrito. Why three minutes? Is this the cosmic threshold of human patience?

Let’s ponder this microwave enigma. Three minutes seems to be the Goldilocks zone of waiting—just long enough to get things done, but short enough to not lose our minds. It’s the sweet spot where we can prepare our plates, grab utensils, and maybe even plop down on the couch, remote in hand, ready to feast.

In three minutes, we can also indulge in a mini-concert. Crank up your favorite tune and belt out a song, because, surprise! The average pop song is about three minutes long. Coincidence? I think not. The microwave manufacturers clearly had our karaoke skills in mind.

Three minutes is also the perfect time to engage in a little life reflection. As your food spins lazily, you can contemplate your life choices. Like, why did you think those leftover meatballs were a good idea? Or, you can scroll through your social media feed, realizing that everyone else is also waiting for their food to microwave, judging by the influx of #microwavehacks.

But let’s be honest, the real magic of the three-minute rule is its ability to keep us from causing kitchen disasters. Anything shorter, and we’d be impatiently prying open the microwave door every 10 seconds. Anything longer, and we’d wander off, only to return to a culinary crime scene.

So here’s to the mysterious, universally accepted three-minute microwave wait. It’s just enough time to do everything and nothing, all while waiting for that delightful ding that signals the end of our mini-purgatory. Cheers to you, microwave engineers, for cracking the code of our collective attention span.