wait for the other shoe to drop

1. Await a seemingly inevitable event, as in Now that she has a good enough job to leave her husband, we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop. This expression alludes to a person awakened by a neighbor who loudly dropped one shoe on the floor and is waiting for the second shoe to be dropped. [Early 1900s]

Example Sentences

“Aging sucks. There’s nothing fun about it. Your close friends call and tell you they went to the doctor today. And then you just wait for the other shoe to drop. It’s just so awful.”

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It is merely a sleight of hand and a twist of fate, and we're all resting on Bono's bed of nails while we wait for the other shoe to drop.

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So now we wait for the other shoe to drop.

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He knew to wait for the other shoe to drop.

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Criminal justice reformers must now wait for the other shoe to drop, to see how far Kavanaugh is willing to veer to the right.

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