Confusion Of Goods

Besides being the name of a really good golfer from a time before your grandpa took up golf, Arnold Palmer is the name of a drink. Specifically, it’s a mixture of ice tea and lemonade. You can make your own Arnold Palmer, right in your own kitchen. Here's the recipe: pour some ice tea into a glass, but not all the way to the top. Now pour some lemonade into the same glass. There you go! It's like you're having lunch at the country club.

Okay, now that you've made your Arnold Palmer, it's time to try to get your ice tea and lemonade back. Separate the stuff you poured into the glass so that you're left with just a half glass of ice tea and a half glass of lemonade. Impossible, right? Now that it's mixed, it's just...mixed.

That's confusion of goods.

The term refers to the legal situation where two or more parties have so mixed their stuff together that it's impossible to figure out whose stuff is whose. Common problem in marriages and businesses.

Think of splitting with a business partner after a few decades and trying to remember who bought the stapler.