I feel some of your pain. I broke my chain putting it back on after cleaning. It got cocked in the chain tool or something. Went to the LBS, "I broke my chain." Eyes light up. I wanted to say "while schooling a Ninja crotch rocket on the quarter mile." Truth barges in. "While cleaning it." Eyes shift to sympathy mode as I get my wallet out. Hopefully upgrading to a master link will compensate for my clumsiness. Sigh.

Same bike, different week. Seat tube is 27.0 mm. Bike came with a 27.2 mm seat post. Wouldn't fit. Duh! So LBS cut it. I later decided I needed to raise the saddle, but there was not enough post left. I took the oversize but stumpy post to (different) LBS, said "I need a seat post this size." They gave me what I asked for. Seat tube hadn't grown. Replacement post did not fit either. So I cut it, longer this time, but I knew something was still wrong. Measurement and research revealed the actual problem. Waiting for a 27.0 mm seat post (odd size) left me bike-less for a week. A sad week. Hopefully all the shoving and yanking didn't weaken the seat tube or stays. At least now I have a nice, uncut, 27.0 mm Tomson seat post and two ragged reminders of the importance of measuring twice and leaving the hack saw on the shelf.