A: Joe is in big trouble now.

    B: It’s just bad luck. When he applied the software update, he had no idea what a banana skin it would be until after his company’s entire network crashed.

    Note: This idiom refers to something which causes or is very likely to cause embarrassing problems. It’s interesting to note that in this sense, the alternate term “banana peel” is not used. The idiom probably originated from the use of this item in early American comedy, when much of the simple humor of cinema was composed of slapstick comedy. In this physical type of comedy, actors often used common props to help create the humorous scenes related to their physical activity. One of these was the banana skin, where an individual would frequently slip on the banana skin and fall comically to the ground. Over time, the banana skin came to be associated with general liability, i.e., people slipping on things.