Life cycle of a 3M sponge.

"This sponge feels weird," I remarked yesterday, on one of my occasional voluntary-dish-washing episodes.

"It's new," my mother replied.

"This sponge feels weird," I remarked again today, washing an extraordinary number of cups and bowls for a breakfast that only two people took part in.

"You say the same thing every time," my mother laughed.

This sponge, this 3M sponge, has been a rather unnoticed constant in my life. But yesterday, I think I started to realize that it's not the same sponge. It's not one sponge that lasted an unnatural 23 years, but a series of identical sponges that lived and died on the little balcony above the kitchen sink, dutifully serving the purpose of a 3M sponge's life cycle.

So today I say, "Hello sponge." And I'll try to notice when this little yellow-and-green sponge, now young and bouncy, soon to be ragged and old, chokes out its last soapy squeeze - and its successor takes its place and "feels weird" again.