Cliché: like a bull in a china shop

Meaning: a destructive force
Rewrite 1: like an elephant in a Chihuly exhibit
Rewrite 2: like a tank in a toy store
Rewrite 3: like a termite in a lumber yard

Comment: In trying to rewrite this classic cliché, many very interesting images formed in my mind that were really more humorous than instructive. For instance, I tried to envision something big in a very small space – like an elephant in a phone booth. Or a hippo dogpaddling in a fish tank. While these were fun to imagine, they didn’t really match the original idea. In rewriting these on your own, be careful not to drift so far from the original idea that your new expression becomes a joke rather than a metaphor.