the i in me

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.