cliché: behind the eight ball (8 ball)

Meaning: Put at a disadvantage or unfavorable position (definition).

Example: With nothing but difficult options before him, Bill found himself behind the eight ball.

Origins: Billiards and the game of Eight Ball, perhaps Eight-ball Croquet. First use is in the 1929 Sheboygan Press about baseball. (Source.)

Rewrites:

• behind the hate ball
• behind the black ball
• behind the odd ball
• behind the mid-ball
• behind the killer ball
• menaced by the eight ball
• intimidated by the eight ball
• gamed by the eight ball
• galled by the eight ball
• on the unlucky side of the eight ball

Discussion: I tried to play on the variety of ways you might think of facing an eight ball in a game of billiards. 

Update: I had struggled with rewriting this cliche for some reason. As I was promoting his page on social media, an entirely new angle hit me - other game metaphors:

• caught between the chutes and the ladders
• caught at the bottom of a Sorry! slide

cliché: the whole ball of wax

Meaning: everything inclusive (definition).

Example: The book contains everything you want to know about the topic, the whole ball of wax.

Origins: Uncertain, but first recorded in 9^th edition of Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 1953. Associated with advertising usage. May also have origins in old English estate law as a way to assign inheritance. (Source.)

Rewrites:

• the whole block of beeswax
• the whole wad of gum
• the entire lump of coal
• the bursting cache of trash
• the rich roll of cash
• the full load of laundry
• entire wall with cracks, dents, and all

Discussion: With no clear origins on which to draw for inspiration, I’ll break it down into parts – “ball of wax”, “whole ball”, “ball”, “wax”, etc. 

All you ever might want to know about wax from Candle Cauldron and Rotblatt Sculpture.