Microwave-Killing Sponges

When I got home from work last night there was an acrid smell in our house. I said "What is that smell?" my husband didn't know. I thought, "Hmmm, it can't possibly be my chicken & dumplings in the crock pot." It wasn't. I started my investigation in the kitchen, and was looking for the sponge to clean up the mess in front of the coffee maker (multi-tasking, again!). I asked hubby if he threw away the sponge (which he sometimes does if he feels we've used it long enough). He said, "It's in the microwave." So, I opened the microwave and found a tiny little, crusty ashen sponge. It was about 1/4 it's original size, and stuck to the turntable. And there it was: the origin of that awful smell! It seems that yesterday my dear husband heard on the news that to disinfect your kitchen sponge, you need to put it in the microwave for 2 minutes. So he decided to do just that. Keep in mind, he is nearly deaf and cannot hear the beeps when you press the buttons on the microwave. Add to that: the digital display had just gone out, so he had no way of knowing exactly how long he put the sponge in for. After pressing START, he retired to the garage. We think he put the sponge in for 20 minutes instead of 2. I told him that in the future, if he wanted to be Mr. Clean, he would first need to shave his head. Now all we need is a new microwave, because the sponge killed it!

Here's a link to a CNN.com story. Apparently, hubby wasn't the only one! http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/01/24/germs.sponges.reut/index.html