“OK everyone, settle down and take your seats, we’re about ready to start.”

“Why are there guards outside?”

“What’s going on behind those curtains?”

“And why did you take our cellphones?”

“In time, in time.  Tim, are the subjects ready?”

(intercom) “Yessir, they’re ready.”

“What’s this all about?”

“Just watch.”

(Room darkens, curtains part, revealing four people seated around a table in an adjoining toom, playing cards.)

“You brought us here to watch some people play cards?”

“Looks like Euchre, actually.”

“No, I brought you all here to watch this.  Tim, send in the control.”

(intercom) “Control inbound.”

(Door opens in adjoining room and a woman dressed in a hotel uniform brings in a bowl of potato chips which she places in the middle of the table.)

“Those aren’t even our chips.”

“Cape Cod?”

“Probably.”

(The subjects continue to play cards; over the next five minutes roughly half of the bowl of chips is consumed by three of the players; the fourth does not eat.  The cards are reshuffled and redealt, and play continues.)

“OK, so if that was the control, then what are you…”

“My friends, I want you to pay very close attention to what happens next.  Tim, send in the sample.”

(intercom) “Sample inbound.”

(The door opens again and the same woman brings in a bowl filled with light-brown conical snacks.)

“Hold it, those look like…”

“Watch.”

(One of the players takes one of the snacks, then another, then a handful.  Another player reaches for the bowl and takes one and eats it, and reaches quickly for another only to have his hand collide with the hand of the first man, who pulls the bowl close to him.  Some words are exchanged, but the first man seems to pay no attention and continues to jam handfuls of the snacks into his mouth as the second man dives across the table and body-tackles the first man to the ground.  The snacks go flying as the two men wrestle. The two remaining men look at each other, and each tries one of the snacks.  The third man begins to sweep the spilled snacks still on the table together and eat them, while the fourth man simply weeps.)

“Tim, I think we’ve seen enough.”

(intercom) “Sending in the wives.”

(Four women enter the room carrying shopping bags.  They stop, stare and begin to yell, but to no effect; the two men on the ground continue to fight, the third continues to snap up every remaining whole snack and even some of the broken ones, and the fourth man continues to weep,  huge shoulder-heaving sobs.)

(intercom) “We’re going to have to go to stage two.”

“OK, Tim, I’ll check in later.  And give each of them an extra hundred.”

(intercom) “What if they ask for product?”

“No product.”

(intercom) “10-4.”

“What did you feed those people?”

“I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“This can’t go to market.”

“But it can.  And it will.  When the development team in Gstaad said they had something hot, I had no idea it was this hot.  But as you can see, it’s a strong performer.”

“It’s not possible, they looked…I mean, those looked like…”

“Like Bugles, yes.”

“Bugles did THAT?”

“Not just any Bugles.  Chocolate Peanut Butter Bugles.”

“Oh my God…”

“You didn’t.”

“We did.”