It all began on a Tuesday, which was already a bad sign. Gary, a man whose entire personality was defined by his vintage, Shiny silver 1980's windbreaker, was having a terrible day. The windbreaker, with its aggressively neon pink and green geometric patterns, was his most prized possession. Today, however, it felt less like a fashion statement and more like a cruel joke. Gary was trapped. He was trapped in a room made entirely of polished chrome, with no doors, no windows, and no discernible way out. With him were two other occupants. The first was a robot named Unit 734. Unit 734 was a boxy, beige affair, whose one and only function was to count things. Specifically, it was counting the chrome rivets on the walls. It had been counting them for seventeen hours, and Gary was pretty sure it was starting to get a little unhinged. The second occupants were monkeys. A lot of monkeys. A troop of capuchin monkeys, to be precise, and they were not happy. They were swinging from nonexistent vines, chattering with indignation, and occasionally throwing handfuls of nonexistent dirt at Unit 734. The leader, a particularly scrappy little female named Peanuts, had a tiny, plastic tiara she had somehow fashioned and was wearing it at a jaunty angle. "Ten thousand, four hundred and sixty-two," Unit 734 droned, its voice a monotone devoid of all emotion. "Ten thousand, four hundred and sixty-three." "It's the jacket!" Peanuts shrieked in perfect, if slightly squeaky, English. "It's too bright! It's an insult to our collective primate heritage!" Gary clutched his beloved windbreaker. "It's a classic!" he protested. "It represents an era of vibrant optimism and bad hair!" Peanuts hissed and a half-dozen of her compatriots began to chant, "Bright jacket! Bad jacket! Get rid of the bright jacket!" Just as Gary was contemplating using his shoe as a bargaining chip, the room began to shake. A single, shimmering portal appeared on one of the chrome walls. A voice, sounding remarkably like a slightly exasperated game show host, boomed through the room. "Welcome, contestants, to 'The Chromatic Conundrum!' Your challenge is to escape this room. To do so, you must answer one simple riddle. What is the sound of one hand clapping, multiplied by the square root of a banana?" Peanuts, with a surprisingly firm grasp of abstract concepts, immediately began drawing a complex series of equations in the air. Unit 734's single red eye began to blink wildly. "Insufficient data," it whirred, "and my primary function is counting, not arithmetic." Gary, however, simply stared at his windbreaker. He thought about the colors. The neon pink. The electric green. The silver. He thought about the sound of a hand clapping, and the peeling of a banana, and he had an idea. He took off his windbreaker. The monkeys, momentarily stunned by his audacity, stopped their chanting. He folded it carefully, revealing the reverse side, a much more subdued beige and off-white pattern. "This," Gary announced with a flourish, "is the answer." The game show host's voice boomed again, a hint of surprise in its tone. "Correct! The solution is a change in perspective! Now, please exit through the portal!" Gary, Unit 734, and the monkeys all scrambled through the shimmering doorway. They found themselves standing in a lush, green jungle, bathed in sunlight. The monkeys immediately went to find some actual bananas. Unit 734 began counting the number of leaves on a nearby tree. Gary, clutching his now-reversed windbreaker, smiled. He had outsmarted the room, not with logic, but with a well-placed fashion accessory. As he walked away, a triumphant Peanuts suddenly appeared next to him, wearing his windbreaker, reversed to its dull side, like a cape. "Not bad," she squeaked, "But it would be a lot better if it came with a banana pocket."
I refuse to give credit to AI
