Soccer tournament season is in full swing now. Soccer is also extremely expensive. So it is perplexing that love to schedule tournaments on Fridays.  Doesn't someone somewhere have to pay for the uniforms?  And tournaments.  Apparently the work week in the soccer world ends 9am Friday morning.

So this left me in the unenviable position of having to take all five children to a tournament myself last Friday.  Baba was playing, which meant I was flying fairly solo. Naturally, our trip began with me shopping for bribes. Never underestimate the effectiveness of purchasing all sorts of treats at Costco, announcing that they are only for soccer games. And children who behave at soccer games. 

While I was anticipating misbehavior from a child or two, ahem X-Man, I wasn't expecting my van to revolt. But, at Costco, it decided that all the sliding doors should be opened. Always. And if I closed them, they should open again. And that all the door alarms should go off the entire time. And when I finally tricked a door into closing and locking it into place, it should continue to try to open it during the drive home. Did I mention ALL the door alarms?

A quick google and I discovered that my car was not actually possessed. It is just a Chevy Venture. And this is what it does. The simplest solution, considering I was about to embark on a rush hour timed drive and the dinging door alarms were fraying the nerves of all the passengers, was to remove fuse #21. This was the solution most recommended by other suckers who had purchased the same vehicle. 

Fuse #21 was not where the manual said it would be. But"Where's fuse #21?" Did I mention that the doors were still open and dinging away? Yeah, they were. 

I am a resourceful woman. I pulled out my phone, took a picture of the fuse box, took a picture of the manual and sent them to the father figure. And I asked the very reasonable question

He texted back "You are looking at the wrong fuse panel. Look around the dashboard." Helpful....and yet not. I could not find the fuse panel. I did call the father figure and asked him to tell me where it was. In the car that he could not see. It didn't work. Although he got to hear the alarms going off and agreed that it was all very annoying. 

I couldn't find the fuses, so I returned to wrestling the doors closed. That was more successful, although wiping down the contacts did exactly nothing. And as I was not in a position to adjust the torque of the door, which was another suggestion on the Internet, I did the next best thing. I hunted the father figure down. Fortunately he drives a rather identifiable vehicle. 

So there in a parking lot, the father figure removed fuse #21. Blessed silence. Until Mac realized that the dinging was done and started talking again. And, by the way, the fuse panel was on the passenger's side, on the outside of the glove box. With is definitely not under the dashboard. 

Removing fuse #21 eliminated the warning chimes. And the backup sensor, which I was a fan of. It also eliminated the one non negotiable I had when buying a car, remote open doors. Of course. But my sanity is worth it, at least for the moment. 

As a side note, everyone behaved themselves quite nicely at the game and pretty much just are snacks the whole time. I should have known it would be leaving them with the father figure that would be the disaster. But as I am in a contest which requires seven hours of sleep a night (it's harder than you think), that's a story that will wait until tomorrow.