have you gotta match?

There is a wonderful passage in Hans Christian Anderson where a Danish guy is attempting to marry a beautiful Turkish princess -and to do so he must tell a story to her mother and father...one that is both funny and entertaining and also moral and uplifting...

A match on the hearth begins the story by saying we matches here used to belong to a huge and important family.  In fact we were part of the trunk of that magnificent tree.

And in those days many times we were the only tree that could stay green all during the winter.

There were many parts to the tree, many different branches and even smaller related trees in the immediate vicinity.

Now the five of us that are left are here to light the hearth each night and we are proud to have this service for who does not wish for a warm fire on these cold nights...though I of course resent lighting the fire for an heretoclite who with his ugly spirit has stolen the rest of the matches, -and now hides them in his storage unit thinking to somehow sell them later -and quite frankly I would be happy to see him caught, put on trial, convicted, and put in jail for ten years...and indeed this may yet happen.