A couple cars short of a choo-choo.
A few cells short of a brain.
A dime short of a nickel. (For the truly lacking.)
A few cars short of a cons. (Lisp hacker’s insult.)
A couple packets short of a handshake.
I’ve always been immensely fond of the line from “I’m Going Slightly Mad” by Queen.
“One Wave short of a shipwreck.”
This is a variant form, but… How ‘bout the classic Foghorn Leghorn, "That boy’s about as sharp as a bag o’ wet mice!"
One taco short of a fiesta.
One sandwich short of a picnic.
One brick short of a full load.
One dumb blonde short of a horror flick.
A classic Bart line from “The Simpsons” “He’s a few prawns short of a galaxy”. If you saw the episode (with Gary Coleman as a security guard) you know what I am talking about.
One peg scant of a leg (Also works to replace “leg” with “pirate” if you so desire)
Three words shy of an excuse
One player off of a game of solitaire
Lacking a few dozen characters to create a tweet
Two million attendees away from an inauguration (Works best on someone from the USA)
A few digits poor of a phone number
And, my personal favorite:
Two cells short of an amoeba (I was hit with this one, and did the following: :smack: because an amoeba is a single-celled organism)
Those are all pretty awful, CaTastrophy427. And in the OP, “a few vermin short of a plague” would seem to me to have an entirely different meaning to “a brick short of a load”.
One stroke short of an orgasm.
Throw me out as the game ball,
knock me out of the park.
I’ve lost my peanuts,
I’m crackers, Jack.
Hit me so hard that I’ll never come back.
'Cause I’m root toot toot tutti frutti,
It’s no joke, I’m insane.
Yes, I’m One, Two Three strikes short
Of a Full Ball Game!
(Larry Doyle wrote the first five and a half lines, and I supplied the rest.)
How about “14 years long of a timely post”?
14 k short of a f p d?
One crow short of a murder.
A few brains short of a hivemind.
(…doesn’t really work, does it)
A few zombies short of an apocalypse?