Birthday Break-in

Last week, I was off enjoying a lovely afternoon birthday party in honor of me in a friend’s courtyard clear across town when I got a couple of unexpected phone calls from a French cousin who I haven’t spoken to in years. I thought she was wishing me a happy birthday and I ignored them. Then I got a call from an unknown number. I chose (after plenty of kir royals) to ignore this call too. Finally I got a call from my older sister from the States (via What’s App). Since we had already spoken for my birthday I got a bit nervous and answered her call. She shouted “your apartment has been broken into and they left the door wide open. Get home now” – so instead of taking the metro home I decided to call a cab. But the bolt driver cancelled on me after going to the wrong address. Then my adult son and I flagged a taxi on the street. Therein was the only actual theft I have found so far. Twenty two euros was more than I could really afford – but I was grateful for the ride anyway.
On the way home and while waiting for the Bolt I called the unknown number I had refused earlier, and it was the police flipping out at me. He said he had found my apartment door wide open and had shut it. This is on the 4th floor of a secure apartment building in a good neighborhood in Paris by the way.

The policeman also asked if the ipad or MacBook pro he was holding were mine or if I had lost a gold necklace with an M on it or some fancy Dior perfume. They thought they had found the burglars but weren’t sure what they had stolen. I had to deny ownership of any of that cool stuff and when I got home my key was still hidden in the hallway and I used it to get into my flat. It was a mess. Just how we had left it. I first thought of my computer because it is the only vaguely valuable thing I own, but there it was plugged in on the desk right in front of the door. I then worried about the other computers that we were shipping to Kenya and I thought I didn’t see them….but I found them right where I had left them, vaguely put away.
Laundry was drying beds were unmade and Nothing was taken.

So I called my sister back and told her. She laughed hard as she explained to her date that “they had broken into my sister’s apartment but didn’t want anything”.
After repeating my mantra that the best way to not be robbed is to not own nice stuff I called the police back and neglected to ask how they had gotten to the 4th floor of my apartment building anyway. But I told them that none of that stuff was mine. The nice policeman told me that if I found anything missing I was to call his personal number. Then I realized that this was the police from several districts over in Paris who had left me a personal note inside my messy apartment. So weird.

We considered telling my insurance company that the burglars had come and taken our macbook pro and ipad and left us some shitty laptops but we decided against that.

Upon slightly sober reflexion we figured out that my son may not have shut the apartment door properly when he left. The police had been hunting down these three suspicious (read African maybe) men and had a fascist conniption involving calling my cousin to break up my birthday party (she may be on file as my french next of kin?). Son summed it all up well with “some black guy went shopping and the police had to find out who they had robbed from”.

Punch line conspicuous consumption will get you in trouble and the French Police have your number.