the i in me Lyrics

Quite far along St. Paul's Street, St. Catharines, stands a dull-looking shop window. By day the panes are large and blank, reflecting the restaurant opposite in sepia grey. By night, however, they are lit up in all shades of blue with neon signs that don't give anything away.

I had asked my new friends what this place was: surely they would know as it's directly next door to their favourite bar?

"It's a shroom shop," they told me "you can buy all different kinds in there."

I had already spent a good deal of time trying to get my head around the fact that I could walk into a store and buy a joint if I wanted to, now I was being told I could go and buy SHROOMS?! This place has confounded me at every corner.

I didn't bother inquiring about the legality of it all. If they were able to have a shop on their high street that openly sells shrooms, who was I to question it? This was Canada, after all, not stuffy old England.

The next day I returned on my bike to have a look inside, see if I trusted this place.

A flat screen TV, the size of one you might find in a pub, occupied the wall and played a loop of menus and pricing. Below it sat glass cabinets, inside of which were parcels labelled with the names of different mushroom strains and what one might expect to happen if ingested. Various paraphernalia littered neatly placed shelves on the other walls and a shop assistant sat behind another glass case at the far end.

"Can I help?" She asked.

"No thanks, I'm just looking." I answered, painfully aware of my strange accent.

The prices seemed reasonable and I knew I could afford to buy at least the second cheapest strain, but decided I was not ready to there and then.

Cut to a few days later and I'm driving between Vietnamese restaurants with some friends one evening.

"On the way back do you mind if we make a quick stop on Saint Paul's?" I asked "There's something I want to check out."

Between my initial investigation and now, I had decided that I had to make a purchase. When else would I get an opportunity like this?

Explaining exactly where I wanted to stop to make parking easier, it was immediately understood where it was I wanted to go.

"I'd like to come in with you, actually…" said another passenger, "I've always wondered about that store."

We stopped. I checked I had my wallet. We wandered in.

It's quite disconcerting walking through an unlocked door into a shop with no lights on. My first instinct was to turn to my friend and say we should walk off, they must be closed.

"We're open!" Came a voice from the blackness, "the power's gone out but we're open."

From where the voice had spoken came a white light, the flashlight from a phone, which beckoned us in.

I was sorry that my friend's first experience in here wasn't quite as wholesome and above-board as my own had been. It now seemed as though I had brought her into some illicit drug deal; perhaps I should have asked more questions about the legality of it all.

"Do you know what it is you're looking for?" Asked the assistant.

I did, it was all I had been trying to memorise since I was in here last: seven grams of Mexicana. Part of me, however - and I didn't know which part -, decided to play dumb.

"I'm not sure. What would you recommend?"

"Here, take a look at the menu."

Grabbing my phone and enabling the torch, I reached out a hand as I was passed a glossy cardboard list of strains and prices, the same as I had seen on then TV.

Showing it to my colleague so she could at least have an inkling that this place was legit - they could afford glossy cardboard -, we both perused the information and descriptions of the merchandise for a minute or two.

"I think I'll have the Mexicana, please." The accent breaking the silence and sticking out in the darkness light a blowtorch.

"How much?"

"I think I'll go with the seven grams, please."

"Good choice. Is this your first time?"

"No, I was in here the other day…"

"I mean taking shrooms."

"Oh, yeah. Ha." Embarrassed.

As they reached down to a drawer beneath the glass cabinet, the torch from their phone danced around the room in an epileptic tease.

"You'll be totally fine. And these, these are a great place to start. Just make sure you don't take too much at first; always start low."

Handing me the parcel, a matte-plastic envelope with more Mexicana-related information printed on it, a card machine was produced - more evidence of the legitness of this enterprise.

We exchanged ownership and went our separate ways. The cashier back into the darkness and us two out into the early, summer evening.