This morning was like many we have these days. Get up, get dressed, get the kiddo dressed, rush through breakfast. And then one of us drives the kiddo up to day care.

Except this morning, that last part didn’t happen. Instead, K came back into the house and called up to me “I think someone stole the battery from our car.”

My first response: “Oh, you’ve got to be KIDDING ME!” She was not.

Looking under the hood, there’s a gap where the battery should be. Wires hang loosely down and the metal bracket that normally keeps the battery from escaping its mooring lays upon the tray the used to provide a platform for the squat box of electrical goodness. The battery is truly gone.

I can’t really say that I’m mad about this. The battery isn’t exactly new. If the subie hadn’t been hit-n-run’ed a couple of weeks ago, we might not even have noticed this theft for weeks or months, given our infrequent use of our second car. Frankly, we’ve been contemplating getting rid of the thing.

And I suspect that the perpetrator of this not-quite-heinous crime may have done the deed out of need. I may be romanticizing the theft of my own property, but I choose to believe that the battery was stolen by someone with no other recourse and with a real, genuine need to get somewhere. Perhaps this is reflection of the tough economic times. The car appears to be fine in every other way, so this may have just been an extreme method of jump-starting. Or maybe it’s just some asshole stealing stuff.

I suppose I should feel violated. I probably will feel put upon later when I have to go through some machinations to get a new battery into the car. I’ll be pissed when I have to shell out the bucks for the new battery. The closest I can come to ire is that fact the whoever did this has made it harder for us to take care of the kiddo, at least for a short period of time. And we’re not exactly rolling in it, either.

But really, I just have to laugh.