a cat on a hot tin roof
One who is anxious and unable to sit still or relax. A: "Why is Carrie pacing?" B: "She's waiting for the doctor to call with her test results, so she's been like a cat on a hot tin roof all day."
cat on a hot tin roof, like a
Skittish, nervous, ill at ease. A similar analogy—“like a cat on a hot bake-stone”—appeared in John Ray’s Proverbs of 1678. It was later replaced by “like a cat on hot bricks,” still used in the mid-twentieth century, but Tennessee Williams preferred the more picturesque “hot tin roof ” for the title of his 1955 play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
cat on a hot tin roof
A Southernism that meant someone who was on edge or nervous. The phrase survives as the title of Tennessee Williams's 1955 Pulitzer Prize–winning drama.