Sick, sick, sick: it came out of nowhere.  Somewhere in between a slightly bad ham and cheese sandwich and a jar of questionable pesto sauce, I caught a stomach virus that has made me its bitch.  I am giving in to it, hoping that in yielding, it will leave faster, since I have to teach on Thursday.

Of course in such situations, once I can no longer distract myself from it by sleeping and watching end-to-end episodes of "Sex and the City," I reach for the phone to call my mom on the other side of the ocean blue, not because she’ll tell me anything I don’t already know, but because I feel better just hearing her say it.

Tonight was no different.  Take it easy on your stomach, she said, toast, crackers, sip flat Coke.

Ok for the Coke, I said, but I don’t have any toast or crackers in the house… nothing that doesn’t require cooking.

And then she said something that never occurred to me: can you perhaps order something in?

It’s true that in Paris, it doesn’t work the way it does in New York.  Back there, I had a whole drawer full of menus representing almost every country in the UN.  My ex would come home from work, I’d spread the menus like a deck of playing cards, and together we’d pick an ethnicity.

Here, I can order Pizza Hut for delivery, but that’s about it.  All other take-out experiences involve going down to the restaurant and physically picking it up myself.

Still, as my mother made her suggestion, it occured to me that there must be some enterprising Parisian start-up that catalogued all the restaurants in my neighborhood that deliver, with menus, etc. I was fairly sure I had seen such a thing.  So I did a quick Google search and found Chronoresto.  I located a Chinese restaurant, placed my order, input my credit card info, and voila. All set.
Except then the screen told me I was going to receive a phone call to confirm.  A phone call? I thought to whole point of the online ordering service was to avoid the phone.  Then further on the screen told me if I did not receive my phone call would I please call the following number… at a charge of 15 centimes a minute. I started to get anxious.  All of a sudden it was more complicated than I thought and I felt sick and–
The phone rang. An automated voice told me to push one to confirm my order. I duly pushed one, and hung up.  I then received an email followup telling me my order would arrive at precisely 19h52, and that if I wanted it later I could specify the exact time by logging back onto the site and repeating the confirmation process.

By 19h53, I had my bag of food in my hand, and the delivery boy, trying to minimize interpersonal interaction, I suppose, ran off before I could reach into my wallet and tip him.  By 19h58, I was happily reinstalled in front of my television, watching season 4 and sipping chicken soup.

My mom has the best ideas.

And the French have a hell of a way of making life more complicated than it actually needs to be. But god bless them, at least I got my soup without leaving my house.