Literal translation
I am in the boiling oil
Meaning
I'm on pins and needles
Explanation
This expression describes a state of great impatience or intense anguish, a nervous tension the person can no longer contain. The literal image plunges the speaker into oil at full boil, a substance whose extreme heat causes violent, continuous agitation, bubbles forming and bursting without respite: to feel oneself in that oil is to experience inwardly the same burning, unceasing turmoil, with no possible rest until the situation causing it is resolved. Choosing oil heightens the intensity of the image, boiling oil being associated with a still more fearsome danger and heat, close to actual burning. The expression is close to French turns of phrase about burning coals or pins and needles, but keeps a culinary colour specific to Provençal, rooted in the vocabulary of cooking and frying. The register is familiar, used to describe waiting for news, a result, or a decision that is slow in coming, in a state of almost physical impatience.