Orangutan, gunshots and happy endings - Wednesday at the Cerebral Itch offices

So we pull into the Cerebral Itch Scratch Pad offices around eleven this morning; late for us, but we were out all night up in L.A. at the Paris Hilton release party. Most of us think it's going to be another boring Wednesday with the usual Xtube surfing and extended lunch to go buy the office pool lottery tickets; man, we were so wrong.

One of our staff writers, Veejay is over here from Bangalore for the summer getting a feel for the U.S. office and also seeing some specialist about a "rash" he got in Baltimore earlier this year at some roller derby match. Don't ask. Anyway, he's always the first one in the morning to check emails from the blog readers. I'm finishing up what my psyllium smoothie wrought when I hear this tortured scream of "sonnufabeech!". It's Veejay and something got his knickers in a nuke twist. Turns out it was "Orangutan"; screen name of the bozo blog reader that apparently lives to harass us regularly about whatever happens to be on the blog. He took particular umbrage with the whole Katie Couric hatchet job we did last week. This guy apparently has some "buffalo bill-like" fixation on the CBS poop-chute pixie.

Except this time he went too far and Veejay just plain lost his shit. The skinny bastard grabs me by the lapels and demands my car keys. Veejay supposedly has learned how to drive in his blind rage and wants to hunt Orangutan down. I try to assuage him by telling him that the guy is probably some harmless sissy boy who works for a non-profit and likes Hugh Grant movies. The Veej ain't buying what I'm selling; he wants a piece of this guy.

So I figure what the hell, he's the one that'll get deported not me and it'll make good copy. We hop into the itch mobile and start hunting based on an IP address and clues we've culled from his past emails. Soon we're cruising downtown oriental massage parlors because of a lucky hot tip from a waitress at Jamaican restaurant that let us use their bathroom. We stuck to the ones Veejay knew specialized in happy endings (go figure) and looked at the masseuse lobby posters trying to find one that looked like Katie Couric. It seemed like a reliable course of pursuit.

We finally hit pay dirt. The last place we looked had this hermaphrodite that wore a wig and a cheap Evan Picone suit. We knew we found our man. Veejay ran crazed down the hall, kicked open about four wrong doors (which incidentally led to me never having to pay a speeding ticket again in this town if you know what I mean) and finally got it right on the fifth. There he was, Orangutan in a towel. Veejay lunged at the poor naked bastard only to mercilessly beat the shit out of the guy's hand with his face. Seems Orangutan was handy in a fight; but damn it if Veejay isn't scrappy. The two of them tussled about while the hermaphrodite Katie Couric look-alike shrieked and danced around like there was a cartoon mouse on the ground. It was big trouble in little China and I needed to get my ass out there before I got swept up in the butt-ugly scrape. No sooner did I get to the emergency exit then I hear a couple of "pops" and Veejay runs past me screaming about a gun. I look behind me and see this little old Asian lady wearing pink slacks and a red cardigan - I'm assuming she's the manager - lugging a goddamn .45 and taking out hanging lanterns and pictures with every off-balance shot. It was just splinters and screams as we hopped into the company van and peeled out into the adjacent alley.

Veejay was shaking like a leaf, bloodied and moist from pissing himself. The only consolation was that we think Orangutan didn't get out of there like we did. All we saw in the rear-view mirror was him getting dog piled still naked by what looked like Yakuza-lite muscle; twasn't pretty.

So we're back in the office licking wounds and laughing hard...that is with a chair jammed under the door, a baseball bat in each hand and frantically trying to get new unlisted office space. We know this isn't the last we've seen of Orangutan and when we do, he's going to be pissed.