See Also: ACTIVENESS, WORK

1. Busier than a cat covering shit on a marble slab —American colloquialism
2. Busier than a Gulag gravedigger —Joseph Wambaugh
3. Bustled about like so many ants roused by the approach of a foe —J. Hampden Porte

   Ants rank with bees as a means to describe busyness. In modern day usage and literature the above is usually shortened; for example, “Busy as an ant” used by Ogden Nash in his poem Children.

4. (I’ve been) busy as a bartender on Saturday night —Irwin Shaw
5. Busy as a bee —Geoffrey Chaucer

   Chaucer’s old English version of what has become a commonly used expression read “Bisy as bees ben they.”

6. Busy as a dog with fleas —Anon
7. Busy as a fiddler’s elbow —Harry Prince
8. Busy as a hen with one chicken —John Ray’s Proverbs

   To strengthen the impact of the simile there’s, “Busy as a hen with ten chickens” and “As a hen with fifteen chickens” attributed to James Howell and “Busy as a hen with fifteen chickens in a barnyard.”

9. Busy as an oven at Christmas —Michael Denham
10. Busy as ants in a breadbox —Anon
11. (I am) busy as a one-armed paperhanger with the itch —American colloquialism

    This is often attributed to Theodore Roosevelt who used it in a letter to his daughter. Some extensions on the one-armed paperhanger image include: “Busy as a one-armed paper-hanger with the hives” (one of many common expressions in Carl Sandburg’s The People, Yes), “Busy as a one-armed paperhanger with the seven-year itch” (H. W. Thompson, Body, Boots and Britches) and “Busy as a one-armed paper-hanger with the nettle rash” (O. Henry, The Ethics of a Pig).

12. Busy as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest all week long —Pat Conroy
13. Busy as a pair of lizards on a warm brick —James Cain
14. Busy as a ticking clock —Anon
15. (Birds shrill and musical,) busy as bullets —John Farris
16. Busy as catbirds —Hilary Masters
17. Busy as jumper cables at a Mexican funeral —Thomas Zigal
18. Busy as maggots —Marge Piercy
19. Busy as the day is long —Vincent Stuckey Lean
20. Busy as the devil in a gale of wind —Walter Scott
21. Get busy like a bomb —Erich Maria Remarque
22. Humming like a hive —John Gardner
23. Hurried..like one who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand —Charlotte Brontë

    See Also: SPEED

24. [Being Secretary of Defense] is like getting a shave and having your appendix out at the same time —Robert Lovett, Saturday Evening Post, May 28, 1960
25. Like a squirrel in a cage, always in action —Aphra Behn
26. Like the bee, we should make our industry our amusement —Oliver Goldsmith