1. That car I was going to buy turned out to be a .......... flush. The owner didn't put it in the advertisement, but the car needs over $2000 in repairs.

2. You must have been as busy as a .......... to get all this done! Your yard is raked, the stairs are painted and the woodpile is tidied.

3. He had been as busy as a .......... from the moment he got to work and was now exhausted.

4. He turned down the invitation to join the company baseball team, since he didn't want his girlfriend to see that he was a(n) .......... He was never good at catching a ball.

5. It was five minutes until her performance, and she had butterflies in her .......... She hoped that her nervousness wouldn't cause her to mess up.

6. He was glad that he buttoned his .......... when the boss yelled at him. A secretary had just got fired last week for talking back to him.

7. His grandfather bought the .......... last Tuesday. He wasn't surprised; his grandfather was eighty years old and had been sick for years. The old man passed away in his sleep.

8. The van just missed his car by a hair's .......... .

9. He managed to beat the top runner in the race by a ..........

10. It took him a long time to learn to play the song by ..........