Building a Better Matchstick

A long time ago, I went to Russia. I met, fell in love with, and married a beautiful Russian translator.

Not long after we married my Russian bride and I were at home enjoying the high levels of humidity that is south Alabama. For some reason, she really wanted to know the location of military outposts nearby. I think she was studying one of her history classes.

Or something like that.

On another day, she was trying to light a candle with a little book of American made paper-book matches, which she did not know how to operate.

Could there be anything in life simpler than this?

No. I checked and this qualifies for the simplest thing to do in life.

To be fair, she had never seen a book of paper matches in her life. She grew up in Northern Russia, near the north pole, and they just did not have paper matches, only superior wood matchsticks.

And snow!

She held one of those matchbooks you would find at a restaurant and rapidly became agitated and began yelling at me in Russian.

“AMERICAN! What are these things?”

Or words to that effect.

“Where are the matches?” she demanded. “This is garbage. Is this some kind of joke?”

Or words to that effect.

Her face was soviet red.

I paused and measured my words carefully.

“Let me see what you are doing sweetheart.”

I gently took the book of matches and demonstrated how to strike a paper match.

“You see, honey, you fold the paper cover back over the match, strike a spark and then light the candle.”

I smiled lovingly and gave her the matches back.

She did not return the smile.

“See, honey. It is simple. “Prosta!”

I said “prosta” (просто) this way because I was imitating a guy on an old cellphone commercial that played on the Russian word for simple: “Prosto.”

“You’re probably accustomed to the wooden match…”

Before I could finish, she stormed off mumbling something about her grandmother being right about the poor Americans who lived under bridges.

Her grandmother often told her that she was making a big mistake marrying an American. She has seen propaganda films (I mean documentaries) about the United States. The filmmakers showed homeless people living on the streets and under bridges and passed that off as the norm in America.

I reminded her that we are most certainly not living under a bridge.

Sure, the house had lovely green shag carpets, but we had a roof and running water and such.

She continued her stomping and such.

Sometime later…

Eventually, her parents made their way from the great motherland to the land-without-wooden-matches for a 20-year visit.

As her mother unpacked her suitcase, she unloaded approximately 10,854 boxes of Russian-made wooden matchsticks.

Which, and I think we can all agree here, is a lot of matches.

“What’s all this,” I asked.

“Step aside, poor American,” she said. “I’ve heard my daughter’s cries for help.”

My bride had convinced her mother that the poor Americans, in addition to having no taste in carpets, could not produce, despite having at least four or five engineers and physicists living here, a simple matchstick made out of wood.

Russians apparently did not use the lowly and simple paper matches.

Or maybe they could not engineer them correctly.

I told the mother-in-law, “Look. I’m not bragging or anything, but I’ll just add right here that we did beat the Soviets to the moon.”

She was not happy with that.

“Well,” I added, “we do make wooden matches, thank you.”

We also make the paper kind in a little book that apparently Russians cannot operate.

This is the land of multiple choices.

But I will never experience the joys of using the simple paper matches again because now I have about 10,799 boxes of Russian fire-starters remaining to burn through.

Prosta.