Big-Time Mussels Among Sea Creatures

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Author: Greg Gagliardi

The first sign of a slow week: taking any amount of time to think about underwater life, including -- but certainly not limited to -- crustaceans. The second sign: writing about it...

I don't have a problem with our friends under the sea; I just have a problem with their names. Most people are aware of the connotations of shrimp and how, in every possible way, being called a shrimp is the equivalent to getting kicked in the shins by a senior citizen. However, it is important to look beyond our small friends and investigate mollusks (thanks, high school biology) like clams and mussels. Both have shells with something inside, and yet one is named after what happens when people get nervous, and the other is named after what people work towards at the gym. I don't mean to be crabby about this -- and by the way, crabs really get a raw deal here, too -- but mussels aren't strong enough to warrant their name, and clams have no need to get nervous because the hermit crabs never show up for the clams' presentations anyway...

Although starfish contradict my argument of inaccurately named underwater creatures -- since clearly starfish are celebrity-like in stature -- sea cucumbers only serve to support it. I've never had a sea cucumber in a salad. And I've never heard anyone use the expression, "I'm cool as a sea cucumber," although it's possible that nobody is cool enough to say that. I also have a problem with sand dollars, mainly because they are not accepted currency anywhere, even in shops that sell sand. I would like to change the underwater monetary system so that sand dollars can be used to purchase sea pens, sea strawberries, sea peaches and sea potatoes. For the record, these are real things. Thank you, high school biology. I mean, Google...

Then, of course, we have jellyfish, which not only do a horrible job complementing peanut butter in sandwiches, but go a step beyond by actually biting people. Getting bitten by a jellyfish has become the ultimate embarrassment because pictures of jellyfish reveal that they are quite ridiculous-looking. A jellyfish bite is like a Frisbee injury. In both cases, the reaction is, "Really, you couldn't have just, like, moved to the side to avoid that?"

I suppose it doesn't matter what I think about the different names of underwater life because we will continue to take names of things and simply add the word "sea" in front of them for the sake of simplicity -- at least until someone decides to be ambitious and use Pig Latin for naming purposes. Until then, I am going to stay away from jellyfish. Except the grape ones...

But I digress.

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