German FAIL

Riding the U-Bahn with my German language partner the other night, I wanted to express to her that I had been so tired when I left her party earlier that week that I almost went to sleep in her doorway.

Here, in excruciating but exact detail, is the thought process I went through in order to find the words I needed.

1. What pronoun do I use? Well, I'm talking about myself, so that's first person singular, i.e., "ich".
2. What is the tense of the verb? Well, I'm talking about the past, so I'll use one of the two past tenses.
3. Which of the two past tenses is best? One is more formal, the other conversational. I should definitely use the latter.
4. What verb do I want? I don't remember how to say 'to fall asleep'. I know how to say 'to sleep'. Is that good enough? Wait, maybe "einschlafen" means to fall asleep. I'll try it.
5. Which helping verb do I need to build the past tense? Let's see, is falling asleep a change of location? No. So I guess I have to use 'haben' instead of 'sein'.
6. What's the past participial form of 'einschlafen'? I think it's a strong verb, which means perhaps it's 'eingeschlafen'. Remember that so you can stick it at the end of your sentence.
7. How do I conjugate the helping verb? First person is 'habe'.
8. What's the German word for 'doorway'? I have no idea. I'll just say 'door' and hope that suffices.
9. What preposition should I use? I don't think one can say 'in the door', I think I have to say 'before the door'. 'Vor' is the German word for before.
10. What case does 'vor' take? I think it's one of the ones that can take either accusative or dative. So, is there motion to or from somewhere? I don't think so. Then I must need the dative.
11. What's the gender of the German word for door? I have no clue. I'll guess masculine.
12. Would a German say 'your door' or 'the door'? They seem to use the definite article a lot. I'll go with the latter.
13. What's the dative form of the masculine definite article, 'der'? RESE, NESE, MRMN. Right, 'dem'.
14. How do you say 'almost' in German? Oh yeah, 'fast'.
15. Where would I put the 'fast' in the sentence in relation to the 'vor dem Tur'? Time, manner, place. OK, almost is manner, so I'll put it before place.

Result:

"Ich habe fast vor dem Tur eingeschlafen."

And my German language partner's response:

"Huh?"

I think the only two of those fifteen steps that I got wrong were a) the requisite helping verb is 'sein', not 'haben', because change of state counts the same as a change of location, and falling asleep is a change of state, and b) 'door' is feminine, not masculine. So "ich bin fast vor der Tur eingeschlafen" should have been sufficient. 13/15 is an 87%, which, in the real world, turns out to be a total failure of communication.

It would be nice if three years of grammar and six months living in the country rendered one capable of speaking a single sentence of the language. Wouldn't it?