The Epic Door Knob Saga

I'm an only child, so when the time came for my father to teach his son how to use a hammer or build a dangerous contraption capable of bodily harm, he had to make do with me. And I like to think I learned the general principles of most DIY'ers. #1: Have lots of tools. #2: Why would you read the instructions? #3: Swear fluently when it goes wrong. And #4, the real kicker, the one that makes the other three work: Know how to improvise and work through trouble to achieve your desired outcome. Let's all take a moment and acknowledge my dad, who painstakingly taught his daughter these valuable lessons, including the bonus lesson "Don't use a sledgehammer while wearing flipflops."  Thanks, Dad.
So when I noticed that the door knob on my bedroom door was covered in masking tape, and my new roomie explained that it needed to be replaced, I offered to do it. After all, it's a simple thing I've done before, it's something that will bring me satisfaction from working with my hands, and it will keep my mind occupied, something else quite valuable right now. She looked at me like I was crazy, but acquiesced.
Day 1.
I knew I would need a new door knob. That seemed self-evident. To the hardware store! A cheap but lockable door knob is $6.99, no great price to pay for the healthy boost in self respect I was expecting when I opened and closed the door for the first time. (You know, when you finish a project, and stand back to admire what you've done, no matter how insignificant?) Of course, the package said I would need a Phillips screwdriver. And then it hit me.
I have no tools. Wait, no, what?
I have no tools! WTF? Whose daughter? Not even a goddamned screwdriver?
Not a single solitary goddamn screwdriver.
When I left Washington state, I left behind much of my old life (including, apparently, my toolbox). When I was living with my family, I had no need to replenish my toolkit, because most of the people I'm related to collect tools the way gravity collects...everything. Which meant that whatever tool I needed could probably be found with enough vigorous searching.
Then I moved in with K. K is a motorcycle mechanic, and shares my family's gravitational theory of tools. When we found an ad on Craigslist for Makita power tools, he crowed for days. Honestly, if we'd had a bigger bed he might have slept with the damn thing, like a kid with his favorite Christmas gift. So again, if I needed a tool, all I had to do was reach into his magical bag, hunt around for a couple minutes, and return victorious. I swore I was going to help him organize that someday.
Sigh.
Anyway, back at the hardware store, I realized I would need to buy myself a screwdriver. So, feeling like the noobiest noob in the store, I sidled on over to a clerk and asked where their tool section is. Have you ever had to ask where the screwdrivers are, in a hardware store? I felt like I'd walked into a grocery store and asked where they keep "that tasty stuff that keeps me from passing out-you know, you put it in your mouth and move your jaw up and down a lot?" But the young man obliged. A little too obligingly, he really wanted to stay and help me pick a screwdriver. Dude. It's a screwdriver! I grabbed the cheap one and split.
And thus I returned home triumphant, ready to wrest more self esteem out of an inanimate object. I set down my new knob, my midget screwdriver (the cheapest one was called the Stubby. This actually does affect the plot here), and faced my foe for the first time. Whereupon I noticed that, though my shiny new knob takes Phillips screws, my ugly old one takes...flatheads.
**Intermission, while I bang my head against the wall**
Day 2.
I'd been running back and forth all week from one store to another, trying to find the cheapest ways to stock a new house with the basic items that I take for  granted. Target was all out of cheap flathead screwdrivers, so I walked across the street, back to the OSH where I'd gotten the Phillips. Ah, but this time, I knew where the hand tools were. Improvement! I grabbed the cheap one again, though this one is regular sized, and came home to finish my battle. The old door knob came out with a little wrangling, using the longer screwdriver as leverage. I pulled out the new one's hardware, and fitted the inside part to the hole in the door.
It didn't fit. Whether the wood had simply swollen with age, or standard sizes had changed in the 3,000 years since the house had been built, I don't know. It almost fit. So close! But there was no way I could make it work, given my current circumstances. If only I'd had a hammer to tap it into place with...
**Intermission 2, while I stare at my handiwork and cry**
Later on Day 2, my new roomie, A, offered to loan me her hammer. Gratefully, I accepted. Taking a careful look in the instructions to see which way the tongue/latch is supposed to face (I know, this is where I went wrong, huh? I totally violated the rules!), I smacked  the thing into place. Beautiful! The knob went on, and I screwed it in. Even realizing that "stubby" is not a good thing for a screwdriver to be couldn't dampen my zeal. So what if the handle of the screwdriver is right up against the door handle itself and makes it 10x harder to use! It's working! At last, I tightened the final screw and sat back on my heels, ready to soak in that hard-earned pride. I closed the door. But instead of that beautiful little 'snick' of the latch I'd been expecting, I got a 'thunk'.
The tongue comes out the wrong way. Instead of sliding smoothly into the socket in the wall, it smacks against it. I installed it backwards. I. Installed. The goddamn door knob. Backwards.
And that brings us to this morning, where I sit in bed, staring at my quiet, smug little door knob. Soon I will have the patience and time to unscrew all those tedious little pieces, with my freaking annoying little Stubby screwdriver, find some way to leverage the thing out and turn it around, then hammer it back in, check to make sure I've got it right this time, then screw the thing down like the wrath of God.
I'd like to say there's some meaningful lesson behind this tirade, some kernel of wisdom I wanted to impart. But there isn't. This time it's just a frustrating story that I found amusing. Though, if I were to really dig, I suppose the moral of the story is that every woman needs her tools. Lots of them.