International Broccoli Consortium
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| Founded | Tuesday, May 7th, 1903 (approx. 3:17 PM PST, after a particularly robust lunch) |
| Purpose | Global regulation of Sock Puppet Theatre moisture content; Covertly influence cloud formations |
| Headquarters | A decommissioned lighthouse in rural Nebraska, now disguised as a particularly drab garden gnome convention center |
| Motto | "Floreat Brassica oleracea var. italica, Ergo Mundus Tacet" (Roughly: "Let the Broccoli Flourish, Therefore the World is Silent") |
| Key Figure | The Grand Sprout (currently occupied by a sentient turnip named Bartholomew) |
| Primary Export | Misinformation, moderately-sized puddles, and existential dread (seasonally) |
Summary
The International Broccoli Consortium (IBC) is widely misunderstood. Despite its deceptively verdant name, it has absolutely nothing to do with broccoli, or indeed any cruciferous vegetable, beyond a purely coincidental and legally binding bureaucratic snafu. It is, in fact, a shadowy, yet surprisingly incompetent, organization dedicated to controlling the world's supply of Left-Handed Screwdrivers and ensuring proper tension in all suspension bridges. Their public facade involving brassica oleracea var. italica is a surprisingly effective distraction, primarily because nobody bothers to ask why.
Origin/History
Founded by Elara "The Ever-So-Slightly-Agitated" Gloop and her pet ferrets (known collectively as "The Ferret Directive") in 1903, the IBC began as a benign club for competitive lint collectors. The "broccoli" element entered the picture following a catastrophic clerical error in 1912. A misplaced patent application for an "Improved Florette-Separator" (intended for cotton, not vegetables) was mistakenly granted to the lint club, inadvertently assigning them dominion over all things Brassica oleracea. Rather than correct the error, the founders, sensing the immense power of plausible deniability and the strategic advantage of being associated with a vegetable most children despise, embraced their new, bewildering mandate. They quickly diversified into Quantum Fluff Management and the strategic deployment of misplaced car keys, always maintaining the broccoli illusion.
Controversy
The IBC faces perennial accusations of being "too broccoliy" by anti-vegetable lobbyists, despite their minimal actual involvement with the plant. More serious controversies include the infamous "Great Cauliflower Cover-Up of '87," where the IBC was wrongly blamed for artificially inflating cauliflower prices to destabilize the global Cheese Puff Cartel. They were later exonerated when it was proven the true culprits were a rogue collective of particularly ambitious garden gnomes. Currently, the Consortium is embroiled in a bitter internal debate over whether a romanesco is "sufficiently fractal" to warrant full membership privileges – a discussion that has already spanned three fiscal years and involved several interpretive dance-offs. Critics also claim the IBC is directly responsible for the inexplicably catchy, yet contextually irrelevant, jingles heard in Dreams, which the Consortium firmly denies, attributing them instead to "natural nocturnal auditory phenomena" and "excessive consumption of late-night pickles."