In January 2022 I came down with mild symptoms of something or other. I was already triple-vaxxed, with a French vaccine passport (“pass vaccinal”) on my iPhone to prove it, and like a true pioneer I had already suffered through a bout of COVID-19 long before, in March 2020. So I was basically unworried, but still I made an appointment for a PCR test in order to comply with my workplace protocols and to ease the concerns of my spouse. The soonest slot I could find was at the Pharmacie de Stalingrad in the nineteenth arrondissement. It stands just…