Oof, that one loose screw must have felt like a slap in the face after all that work. I have been there too, soaking parts and ordering donors only to find the real problem was staring right at me the whole time. @grantf73 is right that 11 days stings, but hey, at least the camera lives to shoot another day.

My Kroger card glitched too and I lost $15 in points last week.

The clerk telling you to "let it soak up light for a couple seconds" is basically telling you to just roll the dice every time. Long exposures without a flash only work when NOTHING moves, and your dog was probably half asleep on that porch. Try that trick at a birthday party where kids are running around and see how many blurry ghost arms you get. Every single time someone blows out a candle or grandma leans in to cut cake, that shot is gone because your phone needed two full seconds to gather light. A flash is not the enemy here, bad flash technique is, and a clerk at a camera shop should know the difference.