Can't do it. That's one of the reasons why in Sam & Max Hit the Road, when you repeatedly try to pick up an object you can't pick up, Max will refer to "that stupid object" in the spoken audio, but the on-screen text says "object #<number>".
In SCUMM of course the displayed dialogue can include a talkie tag at the start, which is fixed for Max' line, but SCI's Messager is somewhat less flexible by default, so I'd go with option #2. I don't know of any SCI games that did.
"You have this many Buckazoids."