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Bartolomeo Parete
bartolomeo.parete@sympatico.ca
La Pittima and La Tommola
My grandfather used to tell this story of how they collected money in Roccamorice in his time. Before you read the story, you need to know the meaning of two words: la pittima and la tommola. La pittima is a person that nags or keeps on pestering you for something, and la tommola is a container for measuring grain, more or less like a bushel. Now the story:
In the early 1900s in Roccamorice people borrowed and bought on credit pretty much like we do today. Only they didn't have a credit card. The store clerk would keep a book with a running total (la libretta). Each week one would pay some of the balance and charge up more. This kept on going week after week. Sometimes someone would stop paying and switch to shopping at the other store instead. In this case he would be asked nicely to pay, and then warned that if he didn't pay, the Pittima would be sent after him. What the Pittima would do, on Sunday at Mass he would sit beside you, and ask loud enough that everyone could hear: "You owe so and so money, When are going to pay him?" Wherever this deadbeat would go, La Pittima would follow. In the piazza again: "You still have not paid so and so." This went on and on, wherever he went the Pittima followed, until he would get fed up and pay. That was the collection agency in those days.
Then there were those that were broke and could not pay. This person would have to file for personal bankruptcy, but wait, not like we have today. What this person would do: On Sunday, when the piazza was full of people that just got out of church and people in front of the bar, he would get La Tommola and place it in the middle of the piazza. He would then pull down his pants and sit on the Tommola. News that so and so put his butt on the Tommola traveled quickly, and from that day on his debts were cancelled and he would never be able to get credit again. And that was personal bankruptcy!
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