Keurig Dr. Pepper announced it will unwind its merger after buying Peet’s Coffee for $18 billion, the corporate equivalent of taking one sip, making a face, and spitting it back into the cup with a 200-page legal memo. Investors called it bold, strategic, and also, “Wait, what did you just do with eighteen billion dollars, Greg?”

Executives promised a “clean unmix,” which is a phrase you usually hear when a toddler says they can put the toothpaste back. The CFO described the plan as a reverse macchiato: coffee on bottom, soda on top, and shame throughout.

The deal, announced only a fiscal moment ago, was supposed to unlock “beverage adjacency,” a concept the company measured with a yardstick made of marketing. In practice, it unlocked a reality where espresso shotguns met root beer floats in a parking lot at dawn.

“Synergies evaporated faster than steam off a latte poured by a nervous intern,” said the CEO, gesturing at a whiteboard where the word INTEGRATION had been crossed out and replaced with WHOOPS in a soothing pastel. “We’re moving from carbonation to contemplation.”

On the earnings call, management said the unwind would “maximize optionality,” which I’m pretty sure is an ancient rite involving spreadsheets and a goat. They also said adjusted results exclude the cost of chasing a cappuccino across a canyon with a lasso.

Traders tried to price the new plan using a blend of discounted cash flows and augury from coffee grounds. The stock frosted up, then slid down the side of the mug like a latte art swan having a midlife crisis.

Human resources issued commemorative mugs reading Live, Laugh, Unwind, then recalled them after realizing the logo animated backward when microwaved. “Our culture remains caffeinated and carbonated,” HR insisted, as employees silently chewed plastic stirrers to gauge morale.

Legal counsel reassured everyone that a merger can be unwound the same way a garden hose can be untangled by screaming at it. “We’ll rotate counterclockwise until synergies fall off,” said one attorney, gently labeling a binder DE-FOAM.

Research analysts reacted briskly and with the composure of cats meeting cucumbers. Several of them quietly typed ‘single-serve espresso pods bulk’ into their shopping carts, a hedging strategy known as the “at-home multiple.”

In a memo, management explained the financial logic: “We bought beans for $18 billion to realize value, and we will now unbrew them to realize more value, ideally twice.” Accounting confirmed this is technically legal in the same way juggling bowling balls in a museum is technically allowed if you’re very quiet.

Internally, the synergy team was transferred to the Ministry of Silly Synergies, formerly a PMO with better lighting. Their quarterly objective is to define “beverage adjacency” without using the words beverage or adjacency.

Maybe the regulators had questions, maybe the foam did. The FTC reportedly asked why Dr. Pepper now smelled like an existential crisis; the company replied that was “the Peet’s bouquet.”

Slides showed a pipeline of innovations: Nitro soda coffee, Dr. Dark Roast, and a product simply called Please Clap. The pipeline is now being reversed, which per engineering is just like reversing a river, but with more consultants.

“Adjusted EBITDA remains robust,” management said, “after adjusting for acquisition, de-acquisition, re-acquisition, foam drift, and the sadness that lives in certain machines.” They added that “organic growth” means the plants in the lobby survived this quarter again.

The board, faced with the prospect of explaining all this at Thanksgiving, asked procurement to find something calming. Procurement replied that lead times on sanity are extended and quietly ordered ‘corporate detox tea sampler’ under the line item “ambient sense of control.”

Baristas embedded in the soda factories reported culture clashes. “We tamped the concentrate,” said one. “Then someone put it in a fountain gun and canonized a raccoon.” HR is investigating whether the raccoon now qualifies for stock options.

Branding teams tested names for the combined line: Dr. Peet, Keet’s, Sodie Roast, and The Beverage Formerly Known As Good Idea. Consumers preferred “No Thanks” with a margin of error equal to everyone’s last shred of optimism.

A consultant in a vest insisted the unwind would unleash “value streams,” which is coincidentally what happens when you pour espresso and cola down a storm drain and call it a pilot program. He billed the phrase at four hundred dollars per syllable.

Management framed the $18 billion as tuition. “You don’t learn to not touch the stove without touching the stove,” said the CEO, bandaged and resolute. “We’re now the valedictorian of Stop That.”

Credit analysts performed scenario analysis including Base Case, Bull Case, Bear Case, and Coffee Bear Chasing You. In three out of four, the company survives; in the fourth, it takes a sabbatical to write a novel about beverages that never meet.

Somewhere, a spreadsheet still asserts the deal is beautiful, a swan with perfect margins pining for an EBITDA fjord. But as every Monty Python sketch taught us, this synergy is not resting. It’s an ex-synergy.

Keurig Dr. Pepper will now pursue a strategy called Focus, which is like Diversification except it fits on one slide and doesn’t require a map. Management says they’re going back to core strengths, notably “making drinks people understand without a decoder ring.”

When asked if they’d consider buying Peet’s again after the unwind, the company said only if the beans sprout wings and whisper GAAP guidance. Analysts nodded, typed “bold” in their notes, and quietly switched to decaf for the first time in their careers.

So the plan is simple: sip, wince, unmix, rebrand, and call it maturity. In other words, the exact reverse of how this started—right down to the commemorative mug that now reads, tastefully, Live, Laugh, We Didn’t Like It Either.