Will Someone Tell Me What The Hell Is Going On With Shellfish?

I’m tired of pretending that shellfish make sense. I’m not talking about shrimp, crabs, or lobster. Those I get. They have heads and legs and stuff. But clams? Oysters? Scallops? What the hell is going on there?

 

Can someone explain clams to me? Anyone? Do they open their shells to eat—like, is the opening of the shell their mouths? Or is there a whole little guy in there with a brain, stomach, and private parts? If we eat their entire bodies, that’s kind of weird.

 

Also, do they swim? They have to move around somehow. I think. All animals do, right? Otherwise they’d be plants, I’m pretty sure. Or coral, or something. I’ve heard coral is alive but that it’s not a plant. Wait, we don’t need to talk about that now. Back to shellfish. Let’s not lose focus here.

 

Take scallops, for example. What the hell are they? Oysters are obviously just clams with bumpy shells, but has anyone seen a scallop outside of a plate? People say they’re shellfish, but I’ve never seen one in a shell. I have no idea what they look like in the wild. Maybe they’re big and we’re only eating meaty hunks of their bodies, unlike the whole clam or oyster/bumpy clam. Actually, that would be less freaky than slurping down an entire little guy living inside a shell, including his private parts.

 

Hold on, how do shellfish even reproduce? Where do newborn clams pop out of? And do they pop out in shells already? That would mean clams are their shells, that their shells are part of their bodies. Because that’s how it is for turtles. (I saw turtles being born once and they came out of their eggs in shells already. It was bananas.) Or are clams, oysters, and scallops more similar to hermit crabs, moving from shell to shell?

 

So then where do shells come from? I’m annoyed. There’s no way shells are simply there, like rocks. They’ve gotta be the remnants of previous shellfish. But where did those previous shellfish’s shells come from? I don’t understand, and now I have a headache.

 

Admit it, you don’t have any answers, either. You laugh as though these are stupid questions, or you say “google it,” but that’s clearly deflecting. I’m getting the feeling that nobody really knows the deal with shellfish, and I’m sick of it.

 

Someone needs to get to the bottom of whatever the hell is going on with shellfish, and then they need to tell us. Fast. We deserve to know what’s going on: How these things move, where their shells come from, and especially if we’re eating their private parts.