Problemless with Problems

Without allowance for further replies, Mr. Spunderwear was heading out the large opening and hurrying Sohcahtoa to follow. Mr. Sister noticed the men exiting the barn, and waited as he watched them without moving his head. At last he spoke, "Yo, Spundies, who's Barn-Boy?" before winking quickly at Sohcahtoa.
"A friend, my good man. A friend," he answered and stepped into his luxury car. A press of a well-placed button opened the floor beneath Kyle's feet where it was swapped with the square of floor beneath Mr. Sister's feet, and during the switch, brushes cleaned and dried Mr. Spunderwear's shoes.
"Hey man, what's the deal?" Mr. Sister made known his observations; "Our vacation can't be over already."
"On the contrary, my good fellow, it's just begun," Mr. Spunderwear replied.
"Oh, yeah, I knew that. That's just my way of reminding you, 'cause see, us cool people can't do things the normal way. It's just not our groove, if ya dig my meaning," Mr. Sister explained as he slid his hand through the air when he said, "groove". After a little while of careful driving by Mr. Spunderwear, Mr. Sister asked, "Where's the destination, man?"
"Mr. Sister, you confuse me. You ask questions to things already known to you; nevertheless, out of politeness, I'll answer the question. We're going to E."
"Hey, that's what I'm talking about! I'm starving!"
"Quite likely, since you relied on your fishing skills to catch food. But I said nothing about eating. E is where we are going."
"Yo man, what's this E? Must be a loser town if I've never heard of it, ya know what I'm saying?" he said with his cocked eyebrow and half-smile as he looked around.
"For the love, if it's a loser town then you must be from there," Sohcahtoa finally voiced his annoyance with Mr. Sister.
"Heh, heh, chill out, brother," Mr. Sister spun around and said with both index fingers pointed at Sohcahtoa and both thumbs sticking up, "Be happy. At least your cow thinks you're cool."
"For the love, she doesn't!"
"Well ah, that's a bummer, dude. Like, she was you're only chance."
"That's enough, you two. Sohcahtoa, leave the man alone. Mr. Sister, one shouldn't accuse others of dealings with cows when one has trodded through its solid waste," Mr. Spunderwear interrupted.
"Solid waste? Speak English, buddy."
"For the love, that IS English, Dummy," Sohcahtoa blurted out; "It's poop."
"A happenin' stud like me stepping in cow poop? You must be dreaming."
"You're not a very observant person if I do say so myself. Surely you are aware of the filth on your shoes," Mr. Spunderwear said without looking away from the road. Mr. Sister casually glanced down at his feet and then jumped in his seat.
"Whoa, man. You're car's dirty...and it's getting all over my hip shoes! Where are we going anyway?"
"Another needless question, Mr. Sister. As I've said before, we're going to E."
"Yeah, you said that, Spundies. Where's this E place? I'm getting old here, man. It's not good for my image." Mr. Spunderwear pulled out a map and threw it into Mr. Sister's lap.
"In the lower right corner are the letters N, S, E, and W. The company we are headed to, my friend, is in E, as I've said previously. My, what slow-witted people you both are today."
"For the love, that's east!" Sohcahtoa explained.
"Now, now, do you see the word "East" anywhere on the map? I think not. Plain as day, there are arrows pointing to the 4 different places. Without need for much thinking, one can guess that we are on the trail of the arrow pointing to the direction of E, so simple logic tells us we'll reach E if we go on the path drawn out. Since the company is in the direction as well, a child could conclude that the company must be in E."
"What in the world is the stupid company?" Sohcahtoa bellowed, unable to contain himself any longer.
"My, my, Sohcahtoa. That's quite the temper, and over something stupid as well."
"For the love, shut up! Don't call my reasons stupid!"
"Oh my, Sohcahtoa, I was merely quoting you. Did you not describe the company as stupid? And if I'm not mistaken, your temper was lost over it."
"For the love, whatever!" Sohcahtoa yelled and crossed his arms, no longer wanting an answer to his question.
"But in answer to your question, Sohcahtoa, the company of which I speak, and by the way is not stupid-"
"For the love, whatever," Sohcahtoa butted in.
"-will remain unidentified until we reach it. But in good time, you'll see the perfection of how everything fits together," Mr. Spunderwear finished without regard to Sohcahtoa's interruption. The rest of the trip remained uneventful if you overlook the minor slap on the back of Mr. Sister's head as a result of Sohcahtoa's annoyance with his continuous turning and bobbing of it. Without much delay, they soon passed under the wooden sign stating "Welcome to E."
"For the love, don't say a thing, Kyle," Sohcahtoa warned. After a minute or so of driving through a completely empty field of grass, disturbed only by a dirt road running through it, a sign in the distance could be seen reading "Company Sine".
"For the love, that sign's enough for me to know I don't want to go in there."
"Come now, Sohcahtoa, that's not the attitude to have, especially since the fact remains that you have yet to make a first visit of it," Mr. Spunderwear told him.
"For the love, I don't need to make a first visit," he stated, but the car driven by Kyle endured as his only mode of transportation home. Immediately the car assumed the tremendously slow speed of 1 M.P.H. Soon after, Sohcahtoa made known his dislike of the situation by asking, "Why in the world are you going so slow?"
"Why indeed? It's the speed limit, my good man. My, what ridiculous things must go through that head of yours," Mr. Spunderwear answered.
"For the love, a speed limit of 1 mile per hour?"
"Yes, yes, Sohcahtoa. Did I not just say that? If you require proof, as I can guess you must to be satisfied, try reading the sign." Looking around, he finally noticed the posted sign reading "Notice: From this point the rate at which the approaching vehicle is moving along this road is limited to a maximum of 1 mile per hour until the vehicle reaches the company building belonging to Sine whereupon the maximum movement rate of the vehicle on topic will be 0 miles per hour and no more. In the event of a failure to follow the regulations just explained, the vehicle will be transported to this sign to start the drive over."
"For the love, that's a long sign! How in the world is anyone supposed to read it before they pass it?"
"Did you not just read it?" No answer came to that.
After a while of sitting in the slow-moving car and patience’s wearing thin, they finally arrived at the building bearing the sign they had seen from afar and had seen way too much of during the long drive there from lack of anything else to look at. Mr. Spunderwear applied the breaks easily and shut off the engine. He then opened the door carefully and stepped onto the pavement, followed by Sohcahtoa hastily jumping out after hoping for a long time to move faster. Mr. Sister remained in the car, asleep. "Ha, ha, for the love, I must've knocked him out! What a wimp." As soon as they had stepped onto ground, a man in a suit appeared from behind the building and briskly walked toward them in a very straight manor. His head was kept looking forward and his face stayed expressionless. He walked right up to Mr. Spunderwear and stopped about a foot away from him and announced, "We know you're here and we don't know who the person is who you are with but since he's not answering me I'll leave," and he turned around and skipped away, still very straight. Sohcahtoa stood there with a blank expression, then looked at Mr. Spunderwear and after said, "For the love, you can't drag me in there."
"Ho, ho, Sohcahtoa, you're jests never cease to amaze me," Kyle said and shook his head, then grabbed Sohcahtoa's hand and pulled him inside a nearby door.

On the other side, a small, empty room existed, with only a podium holding an open book stood. Mr. Spunderwear went to it and said to Sohcahtoa, "Come look at this, Sohcahtoa. A result of my research involving Sine is my knowing that they require all who enter to sign in before they proceed."
Sohcahtoa skimmed the names and asked, "For the love, what kind of dumb names are these? And what in the world is Sine?"
"Sohcahtoa, I'm ashamed of you. You judge without any knowledge whatsoever. These are code names, as any person should know. 'Straman' is the kind fellow we just met outside. See, he's right here," and he pointed to the name. "Now, as you very well know, so this explanation is obviously meaningless, Straman is a very straight person."
"For the love, I noticed a little too much."
"Yes, yes, and he's also a man, which I'm shocked to find out you didn't know that."
"For the love, I knew he was a man!"
"I'm sure you knew he was one, which he still is by the way, because you knew that the name 'Straman' belonged to him, right? But to continue with the explanation, the code system is a short phrase that describes you, as all codes do, but is shortened to only the first 4 letters of each word. So logically, 'Straight Man' becomes 'Straman'. And to answer your other ridiculous question, Sine is the name of this company which you already gathered no doubt."
"So, for the love, do they make signs?"
"Ho no, dear boy; what a preposterous idea. How did you ever form that thought? Of course they sign things for people, what else would a company do with a name like that? But now you must have already figured out that the code word 'Cosine' has another meaning besides my previous translation. It also stands for 'Company Sine' that is stated on their sign outside. But that sign also has 2 meanings. It states that this is the company 'Sine', but also identifies itself as the company's sign. But enough idle talk, I’ll write your code down and mine," he said and wrote "Wiseman" for himself and "Sohcahtoa" for his friend.
"For the love, wouldn't I be 'Sohc'?"
"Oh ho, ho, my, what silly questions, Sohcahtoa. But surely you are aware of the 3 words in your name 'Soh', 'Cah', and 'Toa'. As if you didn't know, those are but 3 letters long, which by memory of what I said before, is naturally below the 4-letter limit," Mr. Spunderwear answered and entered through the door in the wall, followed by his companion. They emerged into a large room with a very high ceiling, which was filled with desks, behind which sat many people, all writing. Immediately everyone stopped to observe the distraction and a second later they all were standing and the lights quickly went out, leaving no light to see by. As if by instinct to the outage, a spotlight captured the 2 visitors. Then they were grabbed by many hands and pulled in an unseen direction, unable to escape and without a visible exit to escape to. The sound of a closing door ended the trip. At that moment, overhead lights took advantage of their dark-adjusted eyes but revealed a small room as well.
With no delay, a deep voice from somewhere in the blinding whiteness said, "Please excuse the sudden light but it's needed for us to see each other you see and since the door behind you does the job of keeping you from escaping we don't need to have the lights off anymore why are you here you should answer me when I ask you a question very well if you insist on keeping your silent state you'll just have to ride the May Cup until you decide to cooperate," and he immediately pressed a button on his desk, causing the floor beneath them to disappear, allowing them to fall into a large pair of cupped, mechanical hands with rubber skin. All around them was darkness. A soccer ball with numbers running from 1 to 10 for each black spot accompanied them. The right hand turned and covered them, trapping them inside. Then they were bounced violently around inside the cupped hands as if they were being shaken like a pair of dice. The bottom hand swung out from under them and let Mr. Spunderwear and Sohcahtoa fall once again, with neither of them upright.
They landed upon a gel-like substance and sunk into it, cutting off access to air. The soccer ball fell into a tube and the number "6" appeared in the distant darkness, indicating the number at the top of the ball when it landed. The gel began spinning rapidly on all 3 axis’s, naturally taking the victims with it. Unbeknownst to them, for they were in no state to judge up from down, the spinning gel drifted on an invisible track which brought it around and above the room where they had fallen from. The whole process lasted a full minute and ended with the gel's release of the riders. Dizzy and nauseous, the men gasped for air as they fell through an opening in the room's ceiling and landed on the floor, with no mercy from the bright lights. Their impact triggered the same voice from before to express an annoyance for their uncivilized entrance.
"For-" started Sohcahtoa, but the voice interrupted him.
"If you're going to talk at least finish the sentences that you start but I don't want you to talk I'm the one doing the talking here now tell me why you are here I see one ride on the May Cup wasn't enough for you you must like it well you will ride it as many times as it takes like I told you before," and the button was pressed again, surrendering their bodies to gravity.

The same pair of hands stopped their decent, and they met their old friend, the number ball. When it was time to fall however, Mr. Spunderwear grasped the ring finger of the left-hand hand and with a mighty effort and many attempts to keep his shirt from rubbing up his torso, regained his position atop it.
Sohcahtoa landed on a platform of wood equaling a square foot in size, supported by a pole which disappeared into the darkness below. A bar of metal, suspended by ropes slowly descended from an invisible ceiling, but was beyond any hope of reaching currently, and at it's rate of decline, wouldn't be in arm's length anytime soon. As maddening as watching the bar's insanely slow progress was, Sohcahtoa found he could not keep his eyes off it while trying to balance. "For the love, hurry up already!" he finally yelled at it in pointless irritation. Mr. Spunderwear watched helplessly in slight amusement, but soon decided to find an alternate exit.
A few steps took him to the wrist, where he noticed letters. A closer inspection revealed that the voice was accurate in calling this device the "May Cup", because that's indeed what it was. Below the engraved title read the sentence: "Use only for your intended use." Below it was another sentence in parentheses stating that the intended use was strictly to aid the victim to better "may cup" their mind to answer the owner of the May Cup's questions, rather than remain silent. Mr. Spunderwear positively loved the humor in it, and wished to share his newfound information with his dear companion.
He addressed him by yelling, "Sohcahtoa-" but the sudden movement of the 2 mechanical hands interrupted his thought and had him instead hanging on for his life. The hands went wild. They whipped through the air, crashing into each other and everything else, and smashed through the floor causing desks and chairs to fly through the air. Kyle was thrown and crashed through the door to the white room and knocked over the man behind the mysterious voice who was just about to leave the room to put a stop to the sudden chaos. People from nowhere grabbed Mr. Spunderwear by the back of his shirt and pulled him off the unidentified man when the floor boards beneath them splintered from another attack from the gigantic, malfunctioning hands below. The entire mob fell through, toward the randomly swinging hands, and all had the luck of passing by unharmed except the man who was in the white room who happened to be slapped by one and was sent off somewhere into the blackness.
All the other people who were falling with Mr. Spunderwear cried, in unison, "Tangent!" but their exclamations did naught to help him.
"Tangent? Ahh, now I see. He's the owner of this company named 'Sine'. Tangent must be his code name, meaning 'tan gentleman'. I've heard he's very tan and-"
"For the love, I don't care!"
The bar hung by the ropes was rising and falling at a rapid, random rate and was caught by the nearest of the group. The rest of them grasped onto her at the same time, just as the left-hand robotic hand struck the 2 ropes and sent the whole ball of them swinging wildly. Kyle Spunderwear fell and landed upon Sohcahtoa's platform, causing it to rock.
Sohcahtoa screamed, "For the love, you're messing up my balance! We're going to fall!"
"Now, now, Sohcahtoa," Mr. Spunderwear calmed his friend, "one mustn't fret over trivial occurrences." But he had no time to say more because the swinging crowd collided with them and the motor controlling the level of the ropes lowered it suddenly and wrapped around the pole holding up the small platform. The ropes tried to rise again but couldn't due to the pole's unwillingness to budge and resulted in the ropes snapping, releasing the cluster of people to fall after Sohcahtoa and Mr. Spunderwear. Into the dark unknown they plunged, with no idea what to expect to emerge from the depths.
The fall finally ended with them landing on the inside of a giant funnel and they slid down to the hole in the middle. The funnel connected to a tube coated with vegetable oil to offer the least bit of resistance possible. The slimy tunnel carried the whole lot of them around and around, in loops, spins, twists, zigzags, and spirals before stopping above Tangent’s bright room and spat them into it. They all passed through his room and through the same hole in the floor, compliments of the crazy hands; all except Mr. Spunderwear whose coat had gotten stuck on a rough edge of the floor, and Sohcahtoa who was caught by Mr. Spunderwear, although the oil covering their bodies prevented a good grip from being established.
From out of the end of the tube above their head fell Tangent who had fallen through a different funnel. He grabbed onto Sohcahtoa, jeopardizing the stability of their good fortune. A sweep of one of the large hands ended any fears of falling by launching them onto a sturdy area of the floor in the main room. One hundred or so employees instictively came to capture the 2 outsiders before they had even landed and Sohcahtoa yelled in frustration, "For the love, leave us alone!"
Mr. Spunderwear intelligently informed him, "Oh ho, ho. Do you actually think that they will listen to your orders, my dear Sohcahtoa?" But immediately, Tangent bellowed in fury and the army coming toward them began to have spasms and fall over, not to mention twitch. The lights overhead flickered violently and machines from everywhere went haywire. Copying machines spun in circles, phones jumped off the wall and smashed onto the floor if there wasn't a hole in the floor from the electronic pair of hands below, clocks exploded, shooting hour and minute hands like darts.
Tangent exclaimed, "How could you have done this why did you have to say that word do you know how long it will take me to repair all my robots how did you know that the word 'sohcahtoa' was their only weakness everything I create has that property I can't get rid of it leave at once why are you still here go I said I have to shut them all off," and he shoved them toward the door, angry at their refusal to move. The door opened and in popped Mr. Sister himself, with a grin across his face.
"Hey, a party for me? But how did you know I was coming?" and he glanced around at the commotion in delight. Sohcahtoa punched him in the face with his oily fist and ran out the door, followed by Mr. Spunderwear carrying Mr. Sister. The 3 of them piled into Kyle's car and he started it with a jolt and jammed it into reverse, spun around, and zoomed off at 1 mile per hour.