Actual potato chip flavors as of today. I’m saving this as a reminder for myself five years after I’ve forgotten they were a thing once.

Yes, it’s true: I allowed these in our house. Some experiments you have to try for yourself.

Someone at the Lay’s Potato Chip factory got bored this year and let the general public choose new flavors for their mad food scientists to concoct and test on us consumer guinea pigs. So far I’ve tried two of the four ostensibly brazen offerings. Our first contestant, their festive Mango Salsa variety, tasted like authentic dried fruit from the health food store, but crispier so they’re less depressing, and with a pound of salt to help tone down the overwhelming potpourri-basket sensation. I imagine these are what astronaut fruitcake would be like if NASA hated astronauts enough to invent it.

Last weekend we picked up a bag of their Cappuccino chips, which tasted bizarre but not offensive. I suspect this fugitive product hails from an alternate Earth where coffee-flavored sweet cream is a common topping for baked potatoes. The sweetness seems out of place, though it contains zero grams of sugar, only fake flavors. From that standpoint it’s a healthier option than dunking them in HFCS-laden ketchup. Call it a Pyrrhic potato victory.

(Of the other two new flavors, Bacon Mac ‘n’ Cheese sounds perfectly in tune with today’s America and therefore wasn’t abnormal enough for my testing purposes; and I’m flat-out afraid to try the Wasabi Ginger flavor. If they’re terrible, there’s no one else around who’d finish the rest of the bag for me.)

If this experimental flavor stunt turns enough heads, as a similar project once did for Mountain Dew, I’ll wager Lay’s will waste no time in opening the floodgates on their social media channels, pricking up their ears, and basing next year’s business plan entirely on the decadent, sometimes alarming whims of You, the Viewers at Home.

From the Home Office in Indianapolis, Indiana: Top 10 Lay’s Potato Chip Flavors Coming in 2015:

10. Fava Beans and Chianti
9. Rich Corinthian Leather
8. Leftover Spices We Stole from Your Pantry That You Were Never Going to Use Anyway
7. Batman vs. Superman Seven-Cheese Chips of Justice
6. Ulcer Backwash and Chives
5. Caffeine-Free Diet New Coke
4. Chopped Entree Basket Featuring Pig’s Head, Dinosaur Kale, Day-Old Coffee, and Gummi Worms
3. Sea Salt and Vitameatavegamin
2. Boysenberry Nyquil

And the number one Lay’s Potato Chip Flavor Coming in 2015:

1. Apple™wood BarbecU2!