‘Smelly Sponge Syndrome’ – an epiphany

My kitchen sponge smells. I do one sink full of dishes and wham… the next day I’ve got a smelly sponge. New sponge or not, it makes little difference. I’ve heard that nuking it for 1 minute makes it all fresh again. So I started nuking it after each washing… and even put a wedge of lemon in with it, which helped a bit. I’ve thrown it in the washing machine too… but I don’t ever remember having to work so bloody hard to keep my sponge clean and fresh. GEE!

I’m a wee bit of a ponderer, so this quandary began a wondering. Now I have to fess up that I’m 54 this May so I’ve been around awhile and done my fair share of dirty dishes. Not that, that matters much in the overall. I’ve mostly been using Dawn to ‘Power Away my Grease’. But you know, it’s only in the last 10 years or so that I’ve noticed the stink wafting from my dish sponge. As my trusted Dawn kept getting more and more concentrated and Powerful the time to spongy odorousness became shorter.

Today my trusted friend Dawn is Ultra Concentrated with ‘Bleach Alternative’ whatever that is? And it now takes as little as 1 night for Ultra Awful Sponge Smelliness. Boy oh howdy, Dawn must be like sweet ambrosia to bacteria and germs. Seems the harder we try to kill the buggers the bigger and badder they get. I was resigned to the daily nuking of my sponge… for the rest of my life.

Enter a new roommate… an organic veggie, earth friendly type. She put a half used bottle of Earth Friendly, almond scented, Dishmate on the counter. I pick it up, turn it around and read the label. Then scoff and say to myself, ‘Yeah, like that’s gonna Power away the grease from these dishes, humpf!’ She then threw away my smelly sponge and put out a new one. I thought, ‘Hey, I just put that out last week, its still good just needs to be nuked again.’

Over the next week I used Dawn mostly and a little Dishmate. Then started to use only Dishmate… the dishes were sparkling clean and the sponge always smelled fresh the next day. As an experiment I used Dawn one day and whamo… immediately back to Smelly Sponge Syndrome.

EPIPHANY… Smelly sponge Dawn; sweet smelling sponge Dishmate.

Amazing!!! I’m dancing around the house with the sponge in hand, singing, ‘I’m so excited, I just can’t hide it… and I know, I know, I know I like it, like it!!!’

My roommate asked why I was so excited, I told her about my amazing discovery and she said, ‘Isn’t it great and better for the environment too.’ My life being slave to smelly sponge was over and I’m reborn with a new environmental consciousness.