STRIKING REVELATIONS

On the eternal roll of unan-swerable questions, “Why do we collect matchbooks from bars and restaurants?” follows close after “What is the meaning of life?” and “Who wrote the book of love?”

Only the most literal-minded would propose that the purpose of proprietary matchbooks is to yield fire for cigarettes. After all, if lighting up were the point, serious smokers would simply carry a lighter and be done with it. And, of course, this explanation does nothing to explain the matchbook-collecting compulsion of non- or random smokers. For my part, I smoke cigarettes only when exceptionally torched-say, once a month-yet every time I eat out, which is approximately every night, I pocket the appropriate matchbook.

No, the allure of matchbooks has nothing to do with the need to light smoking materials and everything to do with the urge to have evidence for ephemeral experience. You drop three figures for dinner, you want something to show for it other than an American Express charge slip.

Looking through the kitchen-counter basket into which I periodically transfer the purse build-up of matchbooks, I found myself on an archaeological dig through the past. The experience was like rereading a diary with inch-square pages-remembering places I’d forgotten I’d ever been and wondering whose phone number that was on the Eight-0 match-book, circa 1981, anyway?

If matchbooks are evidence of where you’ve been and hence who you think you are, they also provide evidence of a more literal sort. I remember, for instance, a roving boyfriend who liked to communicate via matchbooks. The day after a night he had spent “at the office,” I would notice a match-book from someplace like the Roma Motel on the console of the car and feel compelled to inquire as to its source. Many tasteless scenes ensued. The same boyfriend-whatever possessed me?-had weekend custody of two junior kleptomaniacs who relieved me of any number of matchbooks, including the greatest ever, from the old French Room, which was made of flower-sprigged porcelain.

On the West Coast, I understand that proprietary match-books are an endangered species because they have been used as evidence in personal injury suits against bars and restaurants. This is a tragic development for matchbook sentimentalists, and one that we can only hope doesn’t travel inland. Life in Dallas would be a little less richly textured for restaurant-goers and bar habitues without the Starck Club’s small work of art that is flammable, not fram-able; Mistral’s green cylinder with pink matches; Atlantic Cafe’s sole on a plate; and Uncle Tai’s green chili pepper with red chopsticks.