'E perucchie

'E perucchie, lice. Eighty-seven is the number tradition used to name poverty, without softening it: lice were a real thing in crowded homes, and naming them was a way of calling poverty what it is. The Smorfia was never afraid of uncomfortable words. But the meaning doesn’t stop there. This number also speaks of stinginess — of people who have and don’t give — and of small, persistent annoyance, the kind that won’t go away and spreads. In folk culture poverty and miserliness sit side by side for a bitter reason: people who have gone hungry sometimes can no longer let go of anything. The images that lead here make a contrast that deserves attention. Lice. But also school desks and craftsmen — that is, study and work, the two things that in folk culture pulled people out of poverty. And old age, which comes to everyone just the same. If eighty-seven came up in your dream, there was a tightness in it: of money, of generosity, or just of breathing room. The Smorfia names it and doesn’t judge it — and neither do we.