I am up against the gun

This one was heard on a conference call. The speaker was talking about a short deadline to get something accomplished. It is a congruent conflation of “up against the wall” and “under the gun”, both describing a difficult situation where there is pressure to act. The confusion seems to lie with the prepositions “up” and “under”. Preposition mixups are common in the malaphor world. Check my website and/or books for more on this phenomenon.

A tip of the hat to Mike Kovacs for hearing this one!