Put the paper down, now. Pick up the telephone and call Pastis, Balthazar or the Four Seasons, now. Otherwise you’ll wind up calling Doug James in a panic and that’ll cost you $40, besides the call.

Mother’s Day is coming – May 8.You haven’t booked a restaurant for you and mom. Mr. James has. And Mr. James will have you by the unmentionables when you call up whining on May 7, or scramble to sign on to Mr. James’s Web site: www.withoutreservations.biz.

He loves people like you. He calls you the “discriminating procrastinator,” and his Web site is designed for you.

Mr. James calls the very best restaurants ahead of a big social date – he started with Valentine’s Day this year – books tables way ahead of time, sits around his house grinning while the other tables are booked solid, and then waits for your call.

Neighbors say he cackles.

It is a win-win business for the ex- New Yorker, now a Los Angles-based advertising executive. If he doesn’t sell you or your procrastinating buddies the table before the cancellation date, he cancels himself. No loss.

“It’s pure profit,” he told The New York Sun, “other than the initial setting up costs, the Web site, etc. We went from the idea stage to live on the Web in less than a month.”

New York, he said, is by far his biggest market and target. He also handles the big-name restaurants in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Boston and Chicago are in his expansion plans.

Withoutreservations.biz is not a reservation service. It handles only specific, high profile dates including Easter and Mother’s Day. It handles only specific restaurants, which it will list only shortly before the big dates, when folks are the most desperate.

His criteria: “One: the restaurant has to be perfect for the occasion, and two: it has to be guaranteed to be sold out.”

“Our only worth comes if the place is going to be sold out,” he said.

“It’s not about convenience. It’s about desperation,” Mr. James said.

The idea came – surprise – when Mr. James couldn’t get a reservation for Valentine’s Day. It occurred to Mr. James and his girlfriend that someone “could make easy money reserving table on big nights and selling them to guys like me.”

Big money? Not yet. He sold about 35 reservations for Valentine’s Day this year, at $40 each – (“General Motors doesn’t have to worry, yet.”) but envisions doubling his sales for mom’s day. A 100% jump in sales isn’t bad.

Are you still reading this? Have you called The Four Seasons? Better write down the Web site address.