Conan O’Brien toured Taco Bell headquarters in Irvine, Calif. for a segment on his eponymous TBS show that aired last week. It was all very funny, and the beloved late-night host even got to try something called a Quesalupa — an experimental product that presumably includes some combination of meat, cheese, beans, tortilla, sour cream and tomatoes.

Apparently men of Conan O’Brien’s stature can just waltz on in to the Taco Bell test kitchen, a veritable El Dorado for all us shmos out here waiting on our invites. And to be fair, he deserves it: O’Brien, certainly, has loads of talent and worked hard to get where he is, so we shouldn’t begrudge him the incredible opportunity we ourselves have been so long denied.

It’s just a bit frustrating, is all.

A little background: I am not just this site’s de facto Taco Bell beat writer. I am also the co-founder of a Taco Bell Wiki, and I have been writing about Taco Bell on the Internet on some forum or another since about 2003 — long before I began writing in any professional capacity, and before I even began writing about sports online.

A Taco (PHOTO: Taco Bell)

At my last job, I maintained a regular blog feature focused on the latest Taco Bell news. And in that capacity, I noticed an odd series of events that is almost definitely a coincidence but nonetheless fostered a growing sense of paranoia about my relationship with the popular Mexican-inspired American Fast Food chain.

Check this out: Remember the Taco Bell commercial about the dude who drove from upstate New York to Toledo, Ohio, to sample the Doritos Locos Taco while it was still a test product? That guy, Nat Christiana, was a friend of one of my most regular readers and commenters. And according to the YouTube stats for Christiana’s original video, its appearance on my site accounted for its first “significant discovery event.”

And the commercial in which a wedding party stops by Taco Bell in a limo? My wedding party did that, and I wrote about it multiple times, long before the commercial ever came out. Another commercial showed a guy at a baseball game snagging a foul ball because he didn’t have to be holding nachos thanks to the Beefy Nacho Burrito. Before that one came out, I noted that my own father once caught a foul ball in his plate of nachos.

This past October, Taco Bell focused its social-media efforts on the launch of its new app, highlighting the way the app allowed Taco Bell users to easily customize menu items. I clamored for an interactive, customizable Taco Bell menu online in both 2009 and 2011.

“Sugar,” the canine actor that starred in several Taco Bell commercials in the late 1990s. (PHOTO: Trish Burton/AP Photo)

Again: I recognize that Taco Bell likely developed all its various ad campaigns and marketing innovations without in any way considering the similar ideas I presented that preceded, even if Taco Bell headquarters feature a “social-media listening room” with giant TV screens “keeping track of what people are saying about our brand every day and everywhere,” according to CMO Brian Niccol.

But even if that’s the case, and Taco Bell continues to push forward into melty, zesty new territories independent of all my social-media input, I should hope the good people at Taco Bell would at least recognize by now that I have both a deep appreciation for and understanding of their product, and a head full of viable Taco Bell ideas.

With access to that test kitchen and Taco Bell’s stockpile of meats, beans, cheeses, tortillas, sauces and Crunchy Red Strips — those are important — I am certain I could create something truly beautiful.