It is quite possibly the least appropriate name Monster could have chosen for an energy drink. Intended to evoke thoughts of hangover-shedding (or perhaps more shrewdly, The Hangover), the energy drink’s back story is set in Las Vegas. Specifically, the writer says he received the inspiration for the beverage while “chillin’ at the Vegas Rehab pool party, contemplating a cure for cotton mouth, admiring the flesh parade, and pondering the wisdom of doubling down when the dealer shows a face card.”

What, you may ask given this setup, is actually in a Monster Rehab? It is a mixture of iced tea, lemonade, and chemicals (or if you believe the can, tea, lemonade, and energy). Aside from a full day’s worth of B vitamins, the drink appears to offer very little. That is, until you find, at the bottom of the supplement facts, the “Rehab Energy Blend,” which consists of glucose, black tea extract, caffeine, L-carnitine, glucuronolactone, guarana, inositol, acai extract, goji berry extract, and mangosteen extract. We are not told how much of any one ingredient is in the drink, only that there are 6415mg of the entire blend present in each can– which gives cause to wonder about the delicate balance with which these ingredients are mixed, as 6 grams of several of these ingredients taken individually would be enough to kill someone.

But the broader point is that we are still infatuated with the cycle of binging and recovering. Monster Rehab reinforces the idea that we can be as irresponsible as we like, so long as we have a lemonade/tea beverage the next morning to cleanse us and get us ready for another night of debauchery. If we use this model and substitute decades for days, fuzzy AAA bond ratings for Vegas partying, and short term economic recovery plans (be they stimulus spending or tax cuts) for the Monster Rehab, we arrive at an exact replica of our current economic standing.

Binge. Recover. Binge. Recover. Binge. Recover. As if this oscillation were sustainable. As if we are riding a stable sine wave. Mark my words, this wave is anything but stable, and when our luck runs out, it will crush us completely. And so, drawing inspiration from a similar yet classier beverage, I propose a new name for the grossly inappropriately labeled Monster Rehab: the Arnold Facepalmer.

You are malnourished.

Say what you will, but the data does not lie. Yes friends, through the ancient science of statistics, we have proven with 99.99% confidence that over the last 6 months, you have increased your blood pressure, gained weight, damaged your liver, blackened your lungs, killed your brain cells, lost weight, or have aged considerably. Try as we might to discount the results, science does not lie.

The solution–more rice. Hearty and delicious, it was something that you were sorely lacking as your body slowly but surely shut down during our little experiment. I cannot with a clean conscience allow this experiment to continue any longer. Friends, let the trumpeters issue the call. Rice has returned.

The Greeks got a lot of things wrong– Aristotelian mechanics, a supposedly coherent and internally consistent mythology, slavery, work ethic, economics in general, geocentrism, and Zach Galifianakis.

But, in fairness, the Greeks got three things right: democracy, food, and making a ton of money by peddling said food to us non-Greeks. And each of these three things came into play when I tried the Greek dessert καταιφι (kataifi).

I knew they got their food right because it was delicious. And I knew they were good at peddling it to non-Greeks because I spent a ridiculous amount of money buying pastries. But the democracy part took me by surprise, as the very ideal of democracy was embedded in the preparation– nay– the design of the food.

The most interesting thing about kataifi is that it appears to have very little substance. It is comprised of countless pieces of what we might call “shredded wheat,” wrapped around pine nuts (or walnuts or pistachios in some cases) and smothered in honey.

Each strand of dough is separate, twists and bends in its own way, and stands apart from the whole. Yet each contributes to the whole through its uniqueness, as the disparate and sometimes random microshapes add a new dimension to the flavor, enhancing the dessert through a sense of unpredictability. And yet all of these strands are united around the core of pine nuts. When you take a bite, you could swear you had eaten something denser and more flavorful than was actually the case. And in this dynamic dichotomy– the interplay between part and whole, individual and community, randomness and order– we find the profound Greek understanding of the democratic ideals that they introduced thousands of years ago, an experiment in governing that continues to this day.

And that rapturous revelation may be just enough for us to forgive them for Zach Galifianakis.