STOP fuse keeps blowing

[Jules]

Hello, thanks for any help.

2008 Yaris hatchback. I drove the car last night with no issues. This morning, it wouldn't shift out of park. Googled and troubleshat for a while today with the following results:

- brake lights don't work, but other lights seem to work ok.
- removed brake light switch, tested and disassembled it. Seems to work fine with multimeter and internals seem quite clean and functional.
- checked fuses and found STOP fuse was blown. Replaced it and it blew right away.
- Removed brake light switch again, replaced fuse then reconnected and plugged in switch: blew fuse right away.
- passenger rear brake bulb seemed a little dark so I replaced it.
- wasn't able to turn the drive side bulb to examine it but will if need be.
- haven't tried the center brake light above the rear window yet.

Ran out of fuses so I'm posting while I wait for Amazon to ship me some more fuses and a new switch. Would the switch cause a short?

If the switch turns out not to be the culprit, would I simply start following/disassembling/checking the 3 brake lights and wires all the way back to the front? Not looking forward to that, but don't mind doing it if that would be the next step. I'm not very electrically savvy - are there are any other tests to find the short that I might do before pulling wires?