I’d rather cry in a Rolls-Royce than be happy on a bicycle”, they say Patrizia Reggiani, then wife of Maurizio Gucci, owner of the famous Italian fashion house, released in an interview; whom she ended up having two henchmen assassinate, in a hilarious plot that could have been the perfect object of those tender comedies starring Marcello Mastroianni and Sofía Loren, if it weren’t for the heinous crime with which it ended.
Round in shape, regardless of whether its background can be shared, the phrase brings to mind the title of a Mexican telenovela that became very popular in Spain in the eighties: “The rich also cry”, although the Most, to what is seen, prefer to do it in their Ferrari; that some end up changing for a Twingo. Clearly, money doesn’t buy happiness, even if you manage quite well to imitate it.
For those who have not yet grasped the references -or in the unlikely event that someone does not know them-, this month of January will be remembered (at least during February) for having brought the song of summer forward to winter, if we consider the rain of reproductions due to the new success of the singer Shakira, who turns the water that fell in Galicia during the last four-month period into a simple puddle.
But the month of January has always been associated -cold aside- with an activity that the rich tend to disdain: sales. Except for Shakira and the like, who will not have ever suffered the sad experience of waiting until they see the desired garment at half price in the window and verify, when trying it on, that it does not fit the only size available. Goodbye dream style. If the rich cry, the poor cry too, even if they ride a bicycle.
Part of happiness, rich and poor alike, may be feeling like everything finally fits together, even though that fit is different for everyone and may change over time. But what is important, above all, is to enjoy individual freedom to be able to decide on the matter, mistakes included, without anyone coming to impose a size to which, regardless of our will, we have to end up adjusting ourselves.
Something like this was intended by Procrustes, the innkeeper of Attica who, in his obsession with fitting in, tied the travelers he welcomed to the four corners of an iron bed, so that if their body was longer than the bed, he sawed off the parts. that protruded, dismembering it with hammer blows to stretch it, if it was shorter. The myth symbolizes, among other things, the intolerance towards the difference of those who want everything to conform to what they say or think.
This is seen, in political debate, frequently and on both sides of the ideological spectrum, by the inability to recognize contrary ideas as valid, even if they are good ones. Even more: it seems that, the better the idea of the adversary, with greater force and emphasis it is necessary to fight it, until it is disjointed, out of fear or envy before a project as brilliant as someone else’s that exposes the defects of one’s own, if it exists.
The January sales, with their joys and disappointments, in the search for the perfect fit at the best price, will return unusually this year, at the end of May, with dazzling sales, all cut from the same pattern, Procusto brand. Let’s hope that, as a complement, they include bargain raincoats, to protect themselves from the mud; because, given the scenario in which they will take place, it will be difficult for it not to splash.
