Lie Witness News*

*Hat tip to Jimmy Kimmel

CC and I were wandering the streets of Santa Barbara, one of the world’s most beautiful cities. It’s like an episode of “Oprah’s Favorite Things” come to life. Colorful cashmere wraps fall in seductive folds in shop windows. Clusters of Turkish glass lanterns in 50 different colors glow and bob. Fountains lined with talavera tile burble softly in tiny alleyways.

We walked by a shop: Kathleen Cooper – Fine Papers.

We riffed on what kind of person shopped at Kathleen Cooper – someone for whom ordinary papers are just not enough. Someone with a need for very fine papers, unlike those of us known to scrawl our messages on the back of printer paper snatched from the recycle bin. Probably Oprah or someone on her Christmas list.

Back on State Street, an eager European-looking young man dressed in all in black beckoned us from the glaring lighted doorway of a stark white shop.

“Ladies, here’s a free sample of our newest skin care product.”

It was one of those places that lure you in with a tiny foil packet of some miracle moisturizer and want you to spend $250 on their entire line of things that will make your skin look like Selena Gomez on a really, really good day.

“May I ask what you’re using now?”

I didn’t want to tell him about the soap I got from the tie-dyed seller at Ojai Farmer’s Market who calls himself the Crunchy Chemist. I mean, I like the Crunchy Chemist – he knows his chemistry and seems legit, but I didn’t think Euro-Man would understand that I wash my face with $6 unscented soap with no special qualities.

“Kathleen Cooper,” I said, looking him right in the eyes. “Do you know her line?”

“Oh, yes, of course, she’s very good,” he said, looking right back at me. He was a liar and he was good.

CC and I eventually made our escape. She spent the next hour trying to decide what fake skin care line named after a chi-chi store that she should use. She’s torn between Wendy Foster and Pierre LaFond.