I was pounding the bushes

This is a wonderful congruent conflation of “beating the bushes” and “pounding the pavement”, both meaning to try very hard to achieve something.  As the speaker said, “you’d think the alliteration would help me keep them straight”.  I was actually pounding my bushes this weekend trying to dislodge all the leaves that had dropped on them.  A big thanks to Peter from the blog “Our Mechanical Brain” for producing this great malaphor and passing it on!  Check his blog out at Our Mechanical Brain