Getting my stuff back from Tapan

When I arrived to Paris, I was supposed to call Tapan to retrieve the suitcases I left behind, and stay with him before picking up my friend Philippe at the airport and heading to the French Riviera. I picked up a very crappy Citroen C1 from National Alamo at Orly and headed to Paris. I called Tapan, but it did not ring. It simply gave me an error message that my correspondent was not within range. I drove to Tapan’s and knocked on the door. Unfortunately, there was no answer. I noticed the door next to Tapan’s was leading to the garbage chute on the inner-courtyard. I opened it and noticed that Tapan’s kitchen window was opened. There was a good 3-meter wide, 3-meter deep concrete gap between the balcony where I was standing and the window ledge. I immediately rejected the possibility of jumping to the window.

I left a note on the door and started walking around Paris looking for an internet café, which was surprisingly hard to find. I finally got found one near St-Michel and checked my email to see if there was a message from Tapan. There wasn’t so I sent him one, as well as sending him an SMS, a Skype, Morse code and smoke signals. I had a crepe to go for dinner and purchased a bottle of wine to drink while watching the fireworks of the 14th of July. I then found an Egyptian bar and had a shisha while thinking about how I could get my stuff. As I sat outside with my shisha around 1am, I watched the restaurant owner next door board up his windows, and it inspired me to somehow build a bridge from the balcony to the window. I walked back to the apartment looking for bridge building material. I reached the apartment empty-handed, but figured I would start to look inside the building. I found a cheap 3.1-meter long aluminium and wood ladder on the floor below Tapan’s and tried it on for size. It barely reached the ledge, holding with 3 inches on the ledge and less than 3 inches on the balcony metal guard rail. I pulled the ladder back and tested its sturdiness by setting it on the stairwell and standing on it. It seemed to withhold my weight appropriately. I put the ladder back in place as steady as possible, took a couple of pictures with my camera and hoped the neighbours would not catch me breaking into Tapan’s apartment. I gave myself the all-systems go, and slowly and carefully made my way across the ladder. I reached the window, reached my foot on the sink and in I was. Only then did I start shaking and feeling the adrenaline injected into my veins. I walked to the door and opened it from the inside. I also found a key which would use to lock the door from the outside and slide under it when I was done. I made myself at home, took a shower and used the internet, before going to sleep on the couch cursing Tapan’s name. It turns out he left spontaneously for Spain a couple of days before and forgot I left stuff at his house.