Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons

I make a pot of tea in the morning when I first arrive at work. It steeps through the day and I pour out a cup as I need it and then walk down to our cafeteria to put in milk (or half and half) and a bit of sugar. If it's late in the day, I'll need to heat up the tea in the microwave. I think tea tastes better when brewed in a pot rather than one cup at a time.

Today, I went through the ritual and, when I went to get the milk, there was none. So, I reached further in the back of the refrigerator to get a new one. I opened it and poured it into my tea and a bunch of lumps appeared. It looked like the stuff had curdled. And it was a brand new container. I knew this because the brand we use has a plastic pouring spout and that has a little plastic stopper you have to separate from the top before you can use it. I was going to have to report this to the folks who buy our supplies - the store must have left this out of the refrigeration unit too long or something. So, to save everyone else the trouble of seeing the curdled half and half, I poured it all down the drain and washed it out (so it wouldn't smell) before putting it in the trash. Then I just got a cup of coffee because I didn't want to walk all the way back to my desk to get a new cup of tea. I opened another new quart of half and half and used that. It was fine.

Just now (it's about 2PM), I went down to have another cup of tea. I put in the sugar and got the half and half and was just about to pour it in when I noticed lumps (of something) in my tea. Good grief. It wasn't the half and half this morning that was the problem. I need to clean out my tea pot. Now I feel guilty about wasting a quart of good half and half. I've also wasted two good tea bags. I should have done a little checking before deciding the half and half was bad. I also need to check my tea pot once in a while.