Urgent bulletin from the common sense department: Don’t put a dry sponge in the microwave for two minutes. Bad things will happen.

Apparently a news story about a University of Florida study left out an important step requiring the sponge-microwaver to wet the thing first.

“‘Just wanted you to know that your article on microwaving sponges and scrubbers aroused my interest. However, when I put my sponge/scrubber into the microwave, it caught fire, smoked up the house, ruined my microwave, and pissed me off,’ one correspondent wrote in an e-mail to Reuters.”

Sure, Reuters should have included the detail. It is a somewhat important detail in the story about how microwaving the sponge can remove most of the bacteria. But at some point, common sense needs to kick in. Don’t put dry things in the microwave. Bad things happen.

When I was a freshman in college I lived in an all-first-year dorm with about 300 of my closest friends. I lived on the third floor, just down the hall from my friend Shawn L.(not to be confused with my roommate Shawn R.). Shawn lived with a guy affectionately known as “Pinky.” I don’t want to get off track explaining why, and if you really need to know just ask.

Pinky was a star. Just an upstanding human being who repeatedly was seen urinating on the floor in our lounge, passed out drunk in front of his door and apparently snored like some sort of prehistoric animal.

In this freshman dorm we had what seemed like nightly fire alarms. There were never fires. Usually some kid pulled the alarm for fun, or on a dare, mission or whatever. Other times, people microwaved popcorn too long and the over-sensitive smoke detectors sent us out into the cold.

Then there was Pinky. He decided one night at about 3 a.m. that he wanted some Ramen noodles. No problem. His room was mere feet from the microwave. He placed the cup inside, set the timer for 10 minutes and walked away.

When the fire alarm went off I cursed whatever I could think of in my sleep-deprived stupor. I slid on the shoes and sweatshirt I kept right next to the bed for just these situations. I grabbed my keys and stumbled out of the room.

The smoke was visible. Holy cow, there is actually a fire. The smell was horrendous. Burnt plastic. Smoked noodles. Just bad.

We went through the normal routine. Stumble down the three flights of stairs, laughing at each other’s 3 a.m. attire. We assemble in the cold, seeking out our friends in the dark. Our head resident came out and gave us the normal, shut up and listen, does anyone know what happened speech. He tells us that the sooner we come clean, the sooner we can go inside.

Well, not really. Normally, we all get outside and they turn the alarm off. We get yelled at. We go back inside. This time, there was so much smoke that every time they turned the alarm off, it got tripped again.

After an indistinguishable amount of time, we got to go back inside. Word spread quickly as we marched through the lounge looking at the damage. The microwave was toast. The Ramen cup was completely melted into a pool of plastic on the rotating tray inside the microwave. The whole thing was black and deformed. No more Easy Mac in there. Then we got the official story. It was Pinky, his Ramen, his stupidity. A girl watched him put the cup in. He didn’t use any water.

No water. Ten minutes. Wow.

More than 500 students graduated in the Class of 2005. Pinky was not among us.