Last October (2017), I made it a goal to drink 31 different beers—a new one each day—by the end of the month. Incredibly, I was successful in my attempt, which I dubbed #31FallBeers (look it up on any form of social media!) This year, I wanted to try something similar, but there were two important changes I needed to make. Firstly, I wanted to be able to expound more, so I decided against social media blurbs in favor of long-form posts on my site. Second: it needed to be much, much cheaper than drinking 31 different beers. The result? #31DaysOfJunk. Strap in and hold on tight, and please enjoy this month-long odyssey into the sugary, fatty belly of the autumnal beast.

I have this theory that all Fruit Roll-Ups taste the same.

I think our ability to discern the flavors is mostly visual; we see that they’re called “strawberry”, so we believe they taste like strawberry. And like candy corn (another snack which I believe plays tricks with our tastebuds) Fruit Roll-Ups are a package deal: flavor, smell, texture. You can close your eyes and realize you’re eating a Fruit Roll-Up because of the plastic wrap you must unfurl it from, and that slick, stippled, chewy texture that the Roll-Ups are known for. But can you close your eyes and tell what flavor you’re eating?

This is a long way to say that these Boo Berry Fruit Roll-Ups (“Razzle Boo Blitz” flavored) just taste like, well, Fruit Roll-Ups. Kinda like how all Oreos—no matter the limited time flavor—just taste like Oreos.

Don’t get me wrong: they’re yummy and tangy and blue, and they make me feel like I’m 8-years-old again, in the school cafeteria, eating my PB&J (where the J has sorta bled through the bread a bit). But it feels like they dropped the ball with the Boo Berry crossover. For a cereal that is supposedly the first blueberry-flavored cereal, you think they might’ve pulled out all the stops for this Roll-Up. Instead, they’ve just delivered the generic “tangy blue” flavor that so many fruit snacks already have in their arsenal.

But then, I’m a 30-something debating the flavor profiles of a fruit snack marketed for children, so who’s really won and who’s lost here? If you need me, I’ll be drowning my sorrows in a carton of Juicy Juice apple juice. Can someone help me with the straw?