Fuse....fell out?!!?

I was driving and noticed the rear wiper / washer wasn't working. I didn't think too much about it since I think that wiper is basically useless anyway.

Fast forward to the holiday weekend with time on my hands -- first diagnose was, of course, the fuse. I was going to pull the fuse and test it for continuity.....but it was missing!!!

What the heck is up with that? I've never heard of fuses randomly dropping out. Since I've vacuumed the car since the problem first arose, I couldn't locate it to see whether it had, in fact, dropped out.

I installed a new 20a fuse and everything works now.

Has anyone heard anything like that happening? If it was the airbag missing, I could understand that a thief had broken in and stolen it, but not a 20a fuse!

 

No cover. I have a tap-a-fuse for a circuit I added so the cover doesn't fit on.

Yes, but its much smaller.

I think you may be on to something. No one else working on the car, but now that you mention it, maybe *I* took it out when I was looking for constant hot for my tap-a-fuse and didn't put it back -- almost never using the rear wiper, maybe I didn't notice it for a long time. While I don't remember that happening at all, it sure makes more sense than "just fell out."