The Awesome Power of the Cardboard Necklace

On the way to Montreal, I'd been reading travel books out loud to Mary.  (Generally in a fake snooty French accent that sounded way too Inspector Clouseau.)  I read that there was a labyrinth in Old Montreal, and we decided to check it out.  I'd read some interesting stuff about labyrinths -- there are plenty around the world that are pretty effin' amazing -- so I thought, hey, Old Montreal Labyrinth, how bad can it be?

See, the thing was, the labyrinths I'd read about were works of art as well as mazes -- places where you're immersed in a completely different world while trying to find your way out.  The labyrinth in Old Montreal is set up on the second floor of an old port hangar, and it's geared toward kids.  (Probably a lot of fun for a kid's birthday party.)  I mean, the labyrinth walls aren't mirrored or painted or anything -- they're just sheets of colored vinyl hung on metal frames.  ("It is against the rules," we were told, "to climb under the maze walls.")  But we had fun with it anyway -- especially the damn obstacles that we occasionally hit -- like the mock punching bags we had to run through and the fabric strips (kinda like seatbelt material) that we had to run under (imagine yourself in a human carwash).  At the very end, we had to give a secret password (which we'd found in the maze) to the people at the Information Desk.  And, in exchange for the password, they gave us magic necklaces -- which were pretty much a colored semi-circle of cardboard on a string.  "Wear it all the time," said the lady behind the desk as she put it around my neck, "and it will protect you in all your adventures."

I put it in my jacket pocket.  Ten minutes later, I fell off a curb.