Be sure to learn this most valuable lesson.You're absolutely right, as it turns out, I was using mosfets, not BJT's
Consider what I suggested in Post #13: "The first thing I would suggest you do is take out a blank sheet of paper and sketch out the circuitry as actually wired."
We tend to assume that what we did we did correctly. Don't let that assumption get you trapped. Once you hit a stumping point, very quickly throw all of your assumptions out the window and check everything as it was actually done, not as it was supposed to be done. Don't assume that a resistor is 1 kΩ just because it is supposed to be a 1 kΩ resistor -- check it (either visually via the markings or via measurement). Don't assume that a transistor is a 2n3904 just because it's supposed to be a 2n3904 -- check it.