A: Where is Todd?

    B: He’s with his wife in hospital. The poor guy has been on pins and needles all day, waiting for his wife to have the baby.

    A: Isn’t the baby’s due date early next month?

    B: Perhaps. But his wife went into labor late last night.

    Note: The idiom means “anxious or nervous, especially in anticipation of something.” The implication is that you’re in a state of nervous anticipation, unable to settle, as though you were sitting on a bed of nails. First recorded in the early 19th century, the expression also describes the tingling sensation in arm or leg that appears when an arm or leg is recovering from numbness. There is a similar Chinese saying — sitting on a blanket with needles in it — that has the same meaning.