
Inglorious friend! most confident I am
Thy life is one of very little ease;
Albeit men mock thee with their similes,
And prate of being "happy as a clam!"
What though thy shell protects thy fragile head
From the sharp bailiffs of the briny sea?
Thy valves are, sure, no safety-valves to thee,
While rakes are free to desecrate thy bed,
And bear thee off, - as foemen take their spoil,
Far from thy friends and family to roam;
Forced, like a Hessian, from thy native home,
To meet destruction in a foreign broil!
Though thou art tender, yet thy humble bard
Declares, O clam! thy case is shocking hard!
--John G Saxe, Sonnet to a Clam
I overheard someone use the expression, "happy as a clam" yesterday. My immediate response was how do we know clams are happy? And how happy can a mollusk be?
Apparently the full expression used to be "happy as a clam at high tide." And the clams are supposed to be happy because no one can dig them up at high tide, boil them alive and eat them. I guess that would make me relieved, but not necessarily happy. It would explain why we don't say "Happy as a lobster on a cruise."
And what about geoducks? They live to be about 150 years old. Are they happy? I don't think so. How could you be happy if you looked like a horse's private parts and sucked on plankton 24-7?

In New Zealand and Australia they apparently say, "Happy as Larry" as in "We would be as happy as Larry if it were not for the rats." Larry apparently was a undefeated Australian boxer. I'm not sure what the rats have to do with it.
Of course the Aussies also say stuff like "happy as a boxing kangaroo in fog time" and "happy as a sick eel on a sandspit." They apparently don't say stuff like, "happy as a shrimp on a barbie" (which conjures up all kinds of weird things if you think about it long enough).
So what can we really be happy as? Happy as a maggot on rotted veal? Happy as a cow at a vegetarian convention? Happy as a condemned man on an electric chair during a blackout? Happy as vampire at a blood bank? Happy as a mime in a hearing aid store? Happy as a mosquito at a nudist colony?
I don't know. I'm not happy with any of those expressions.
Sigh.