Catch-as-catch-can

Thanks Bruce,
I feel so stupid especially since I haven't even been hearing it correctly. Kind of like a lot of songs where I think they're saying something else other than the right lyrics.

I've been hearing this phrase for 20 years even on tv
and haven't got a clue what it means. I think it means your screwed but how it means it I don't know.

PRONUNCIATION: kchz-kch-kn
ADJECTIVE: Using or making do with whatever means are available; irregular: made a catch-as-catch-can living doing odd jobs.
ADVERB: However or by whatever means possible: "Reading was learned catch-as-catch-can, while reindeer farming was learned deeply and thoroughly through the daily rigors of survival" (Bunny McBride )
The American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.

Misheard lyrics are called "mondegreens".
My biggest, dumbest mishear was Creedence in "Bad Moon Rising".
Instead of my hearing "There's a bad moon on the rise" I heard "There's a bathroom on the right".
Lets see----that song was out in 1972 or so?
I found out my mistake in 1992?
DUH!!

Well, I can't relate any examples of mondegreens on my part, having conveniently forgotten any such mishearings, but I can report an odd misreading. I was an enthusiastic Boy Scout--I must have been, for I actually read the Manual cover to cover. I was especially puzzled by a sort of coded exhortation to avoid what I think the manual meant as masturbation, which it rendered as "self-pollution." That might have been puzzling to some, but more so to me because I misread it as "self-pollination." Perhaps I made the error because I grew up in agricultural country, where self-pollination was well-known. But for some reason, I never heard a single person refer to self-pollution.