Today I had Tea Fail.

I’ve been making loose-leaf tea for breakfast lately because I can tweak it a little more to my tastes. This morning I came downstairs and put the kettle on to boil, then went to check my email. When it started to whistle, I got up and flipped the lid to make it stop whistling, but left the stove top on because I realized I’d forgotten to clean my little tea strainer yesterday. The other two strainers were in the wash, so I went to dump the leftover pips… only to discover they were still damp (it’s been humid lately) so I had to rinse the tea strainer.

The water in the kettle was still boiling.

So then my strainer was wet, and I usually use it to scoop out the tea I want but didn’t want to put it into the packet of tea while wet. I reached for a spoon, only to discover they were all in the wash, too, except one of my really big soup spoons. I have really big soup spoons, too. I scooped out some tea and the spoon was so big that it snagged on the paper edge of the packet and pips went everywhere. Pipsplosion. So then it looked like there were little, well, DROPPINGS all over my kitchen AND my (also damp) hands were getting stained brown.

And the kettle was still boiling.

I finally managed to get enough into the strainer and got it situated in the pot and poured what was left of the boiling water into the pot as well. I set the timer for 5 minutes (I like strong tea in the morning) and walked off to sit down and check my email.

And didn’t hear the timer because I was distracted.

I remembered my tea 25 minutes later.

When it was almost as dark as coffee.

At that point I was so DONE with making tea, I drank it anyway. With twice as much milk and sugar as usual.

And I was WIRED for a solid TWO HOURS.

Tea Fail.