House of Broken Crayons: No more radio silence.

About a year ago, I chronicled my adventures repairing the power mirror on my car that somehow failed to survive being rammed into the side of our garage. Basically, I fixed it myself with a little help from a website, a fedex shipment, and a whole lot of luck - and for about half the price that the dealership quoted me.

Last week, I lost power in my car to the radio and clock. How does that happen? Well, if a 2-yr-old inserts a penny into the cigarette lighter, that may cause a bit of a short (which I actually felt when I removed the penny). Sadly, this has happened before, and the dealership was happy to fix it for about $100. Because I'm trying to laugh about the things my kids do rather then let them drive me to psychotropic drugs, I posted the shorted-out-the-radio blurb on facebook. And I got some very nice comments, including one from my friend Patrick.

A little about Patrick - he's a fix-anything kind of guy, who also is a great teacher. In grad school, he used to encourage me to rebuild my own cell-media pump after I would flood it, even though we both knew it would be faster and easier if he just did it for me. Like I said, he's a good teacher. So Patrick comments on my facebook status that the problem with my car is probably just a fuse.

That was last week, and I was busy, so the car never made it to the dealership. Today, during Pink's nap, I taught Blue how to wash a car, and while I was at it, showed him some of the engine. With the hood open, I saw the fuse box, and thought about my non-functioning radio, but all the fuses were fine. I grabbed my owner's manual anyway, and discovered that my car has another fuse box, tucked way, way, under the steering wheel. Like, only visible to a skinny 4-yr-old who can squeeze himself in between the gas pedal and brake. He found it, though, and I replaced (with the spare fuse included in the box) the blown fuse.