I Should Have Paid Better Attention in 1st Grade...

So I have been working on Argosy for the past two days and I have been spending more time tinking than knitting. At first I was just tinking to fix a slip up on a row (I missed one pattern row and made a row of squares into rectangles). After I got to the right row and was all set to starting kniting (and not tinking) but then I counted the number of stitches. I had 33. This was a problem. I was supposed to have either 41 or 49. So then I proceeded to keep tinking. I tinked and tinked. I tinked for 45 minutes waiting to a late supervisor. I tinked while watching episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I tinked while just sitting on my futon. No matter how much I tinked, I kept getting 33 stitches. I was about to throw this project to the knitting gods when I thought to add. After so many rows, I am supposed to cast on 8 stitches. 8+ 33 = 41. Yeah. Exactly. I have been tinking for no good reason.