One Sponge to Lead Them All
It isn’t often that people give more than passing concern to a kitchen sponge. But presently I’m engaged in something of a quest. The present kitchen sponge - blue thing with scratchy pad - must live!
Let me back up.
When we lived in Utah, I truly didn’t give a second thought to the sponge. However we were up at 4,500 feet where rare was the day that our humidity counted into the double digits. Dry. If anyone in Logan, Utah could make a decent martini, you could only hope it would be half as dry as the air. Our sponges frequently lasted months. They would be discarded not because they had become icky, but because the scratchy bit would start to separate from its spongy bits, or some such degradation of integrity. Never, not once in the two years we were there did a sponge go bad.
The same cannot be said of life in Guerneville. There are a few contributing factors here, beginning with the fact that we live in a goddamned forest. Add the fact that we’re at about fifty feet above sea level and our humidity here which hovers slightly below that of onion soup, and you’ve got the makings of a quite inhospitable locale for our blue (or yellow) sponges.
We’re lucky if they last more than a week and a half. And this is taking normal precautions - as soon as I’m done with my dishes I squeeze the bejeezus out of the thing before placing it in a sunny place to desiccate in short order. Doesn’t matter; less than a fortnight later, said sponge has been transformed from Useful Cleaning Apparatus into Stinky Zombie Sponge From Hell. It’s bad. Toss it.
You can imagine our glee, then, when in the Costco coupon book it had a buy-one-get-one-free for, you guessed it, sponges. Of course the coupon doesn’t start until March 14th.
March 14th. The last sponge we had on hand was opened last Monday, February 14th. It’s got to go a month. Did I mention it’s been raining for the last week? Oh yeah, you might think this sponge doesn’t have a chance. But I’ve been taking some precautions.
After each use, I squeeze the sponge as usual, but then… I stick the thing in the microwave on high for about 10 seconds. When it comes out steaming I can only hope that any nasty things that might have hoped to find blue fertile ground expired in the irradiated hell of our $35 Wal-Mart microwave. Hell hath no fury for microbes like our microwave. At least that’s what I’m saying.
Add the weekly bleach bath for the sponge, and I think we’re going to make this one last. It’s got to last until March 14th. S-Day. Only the strong (and radiated) will survive. Wish our blue buddy luck!
Let me back up.
When we lived in Utah, I truly didn’t give a second thought to the sponge. However we were up at 4,500 feet where rare was the day that our humidity counted into the double digits. Dry. If anyone in Logan, Utah could make a decent martini, you could only hope it would be half as dry as the air. Our sponges frequently lasted months. They would be discarded not because they had become icky, but because the scratchy bit would start to separate from its spongy bits, or some such degradation of integrity. Never, not once in the two years we were there did a sponge go bad.
The same cannot be said of life in Guerneville. There are a few contributing factors here, beginning with the fact that we live in a goddamned forest. Add the fact that we’re at about fifty feet above sea level and our humidity here which hovers slightly below that of onion soup, and you’ve got the makings of a quite inhospitable locale for our blue (or yellow) sponges.
We’re lucky if they last more than a week and a half. And this is taking normal precautions - as soon as I’m done with my dishes I squeeze the bejeezus out of the thing before placing it in a sunny place to desiccate in short order. Doesn’t matter; less than a fortnight later, said sponge has been transformed from Useful Cleaning Apparatus into Stinky Zombie Sponge From Hell. It’s bad. Toss it.
You can imagine our glee, then, when in the Costco coupon book it had a buy-one-get-one-free for, you guessed it, sponges. Of course the coupon doesn’t start until March 14th.
March 14th. The last sponge we had on hand was opened last Monday, February 14th. It’s got to go a month. Did I mention it’s been raining for the last week? Oh yeah, you might think this sponge doesn’t have a chance. But I’ve been taking some precautions.
After each use, I squeeze the sponge as usual, but then… I stick the thing in the microwave on high for about 10 seconds. When it comes out steaming I can only hope that any nasty things that might have hoped to find blue fertile ground expired in the irradiated hell of our $35 Wal-Mart microwave. Hell hath no fury for microbes like our microwave. At least that’s what I’m saying.
Add the weekly bleach bath for the sponge, and I think we’re going to make this one last. It’s got to last until March 14th. S-Day. Only the strong (and radiated) will survive. Wish our blue buddy luck!