It began with soup. And what a soup it was, for it possessed powers unimaginable to the most mentally deranged, and was far more complex than the greatest genius could possibly conceive. It was a creamy soup, like that other thing, yet it was so much more, for who could ever comprehend that by putting sliced mushrooms into a bowl of creamy soup that one would unleash the raw elemental forces which hold the universe in place?!

As potent a dimensional manipulator as this creamy concoction was, until the incident which takes place throughout the pages of this testament occurred, only its edible values were recognized by the masses, who supported billions of dollars of Cream of Mushroom soup production each year. Amongst this mushroom madness, this fungi frenzy, one shroomalicious syndicate stood staggering like a radioactive monkey amidst the gorillas of dementia: Cantspell’s Olde Fashund Soupe Phaktorie, which had been a broth behemoth since as long as anyone could remember, unless they had a good memory.

One thing became clear, as the mushroom money mounted maliciously making many more merry mycologists move Miamiward, the empire of the fungi fascism must spread, and outlast the terrible toxic tomato, the chaotic caustic chicken, and the bizarre brooding broccoli . . .

“IT HAS TO LAST LONGER!” screamed E. W. H. C. T. Billings III Ph.D., CEO, CFO, CIO, CTO, etc. of Cantspell’s. “The soup always expires too soon! People buy it and throw it away before they ever get to experience its horrible addictive chemical taste! They never buy it again! AND I KNOW WHY!!!”

“Why, sir?” asked his board of advisors in unison.

“I’LL TELL YOU WHY!”

“Please, tell us,” they asked eagerly.

“ALRIGHT THEN, I WILL!”

“Good, we’re very eager to hear it,” they said eagerly.

“GOOD.”

“Great.”

“OKEY DOKEY.”

There was a long pause.

“Well?” asked one advisor timidly.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS I TALKING ABOUT!” Billings screamed at the top of his lungs, causing his vocal cords to snap like strings on a 6-cent banjo. He began bleeding profusely from the mouth, and fell to the floor gargling and spurting blood, like a broken water main which was filled with blood for some reason, I’m not sure why, maybe they had to transfer blood from one blood bank to another and thought that the water main would be a good way to do it. Anyway, he died later that day, taking his secret with him to his grave. Several weeks later, they found a napkin lodged in his appendix. This is utterly insignificant, but I thought that you might like to know. After that, they found the journal which he had kept every day of his life since sixth grade, beginning on the day when he first realized that his parents’ love was directed towards their pet parrot. The journal was found with a perfectly ordinary #2 pencil stuck straight through it from cover to cover, spurting blood for some reason which they were never able to deduce so what are you asking me for? Anyway, in it was found, in the loudest possible handwriting, this inscription:

“The only problem is the expiration date! The soup tastes so bad in the first place, no one can tell when it goes bad. We should just remove the expiration date! No one loves me except my teddy bear.”

The top advisors at Cantspell’s took this into careful consideration, but then they realized that it was stupid, and that Billings was a jerk whom no one liked anyway. They did realize however that something must be done to counteract the effects of the quick rate of decay of their soup. During a pivotal marathon brainstorming session, one advisor suggested this: “Why don’t we put in a preservative?” The others said that this was a grand idea, and beat him to death with comical rubber mallets. They then stole the idea and presented it to the new reigning CEO of the company, Alvin Banama Buttworst, Jr. What transpired will live in infamy . . .