Tool Time at the Muffin Tin

Faithful Cupcake Mafia Readers will know that I have been engaged in a brief love affair with my power drill, Bruce. Well, on Sunday we hit a speed bump in our relationshp. I was installing a new door knob and lock in my bathroom door. I had mastered the art of opening this tempermental door, but everytime I had a guest over, the knob invariably came off in their hand. It was getting old. Once I discovered that new door knob kits cost about ten bucks and it would give me an exucse to see Bruce again, I went for it.

I knew installing the knobs was going to be a bitch anyways because of the location of the knob in proximity of the screws, I couldn't get Bruce in there to do the job, so I would be doing the work myself with a Philips Head Screwdriver. But first I had to install the new latch and lock. I don't know what happened, I really don't. Basically, I stripped the heads of both screws before driving them in all the way. Okay, I'll admit. There was some serious forcing of this issue on my part. I though Bruce was maybe just having some performance anxiety and needed a little coaxing. Soon it became clear that no one was going all the way with these screws. When I switched to reverse to pull them out and replace them with new screws, I just did more dammage. Then I picked up the Philips to try to complete the job manually, but they were too destroyed to to respond. Likewise, I couldn't get them out with an unscrewing motion.

Result: my screws are sticking out halfway and my door doesn't seal shut.

Questions: What did I do wrong to strip the screws in the first place? How am I going to fix this? I just need to get these screws out so I can get new screws in. A wrench? A ratchet? The back end of a hammer?

Please, if anyone wants to come over and help with this problem, you can have some of the cake I baked (see above). It's a little dry, but I have milk. Come on, you know you love a challenge. My weekend is open.