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Phrase: Upset the applecart
Did I ever tell you that my original plan was to teach English in Germany? Yeah, that was the plan, but along came a pretty Japanese girl who upset the applecart, turned me around, and here I am, living in Japan.
To upset the applecart means to interfere with or otherwise disrupt someone’s plans. This interference could be harmful or unintentional.
That’s one of the main difficulties with making plans – you can never predict who or what is going to interfere with them.
Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not complaining.
Heck, everything worked out for the best.
I had it all planned out.
Through my university, UBC, I had arranged to go to Schleswig-Holstein in Germany and teach for a year.
I even had the tickets purchased, and the university had arranged a job and an apartment.
I was all set to head off to Germany in September of that year.
Then, during the spring, I met my future wife, and she upset the applecart, so to speak.
We dated during the summer, and when it came time to go, I couldn’t.
Of course, the university was not happy, but that’s the way life goes sometimes.
Me being me, I had cancellation insurance on my ticket, so I got a refund, came to Japan to see the F1 race at Suzuka Circuit in October with my wife and met her parents.
The rest, as they say, is history.
If you’re making plans at the moment, take my advice.
Be ready to cancel or change them at a moment’s notice.
You never know when someone is going to come along and upset the applecart.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 72.
The higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100, the easier the passage is to read.