down the

down the

tubes/tube Slang
Into a state of failure or ruin: saw her plans go down the tubes.
See also: down
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
See also:
  • bounce up and down
  • come a cropper
  • come a-cropper
  • come a gutser
  • chuck down
  • chuck something down
  • bucket down
  • be down to (one)
  • be down to somebody/something
  • be down to (do something)
References in classic literature
I had slidden down the balusters when I was a boy, and thought nothing of it, but to slide down the balusters in a railway-train is a thing to make one's flesh creep.
Tramp Abroad
In the gloom of evening therefore, he let himself down again; but when he had clambered down the wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before him.
Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress climbed up to her.
Fairy Tales
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.
Alices Adventures In Wonderland
"Don't you read ahead, now," he warned, as he passed around the house and took the trail that led down the wall of the canon.
Once, he was swept fifty feet down the canon-side; but he floundered and scrambled up again without pausing for breath.
Burning Daylight
'stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I'd go down the river about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and not have such a rough time tramping on foot.
It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man coming all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and looked around a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path a piece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
After a minute, though already frantic with drinking and with the wound in his head, he crawled to a stream of burning spirit which was pouring down the kennel, and began to drink at it as if it were a brook of water.
Barnaby Rudge A Tale Of The Riots Of Eighty
Deep and full and strong it thundered down the ravine, the fierce battle-call of a warrior race, the last stern welcome to whoso should join with them in that world-old game where the stake is death.
Slowly they gave back down the hill, the archers still hanging upon their skirts, with a long litter of writhing and twisted figures to mark the course which they had taken.
The White Company
Beyond all doubt it was a wolf, and he was so near that the movement of his jaws as he changed his cry was brought down the wind.
Master and Man
"Bring your chair down the plank-way, close to the water's edge."
The Vanished Messenger
So he hurried on, keeping to the rough road that ran down the valley, and followed it at a steady jog-trot for nearly twenty miles, till he came to a country that he did not know.
Jungle Book
"No; she just dug her claws into the wood and climbed down the sides of this house to the ground."
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz