I heard this story a long time ago from someone who lied too much, but it’s such a good one that lie or not, it’s worth retelling. He knew a man who was the most conflicted human being he had ever met. The man was very gay, very ugly, very Latin looking (he was from Brazil), a cross dresser, and a now and then male prostitute. He had two hobbies that he was devoted to— photography and Claudia Schiffer. He always carried a cheap point-and-shoot camera with him and incessantly took pictures of chic looking women. He taped these pictures to his mirror at home and tried to recreate the different looks whenever he dressed as a woman. Most often he tried to make himself look like his idol, Claudia Schiffer. This attempt was pretty impossible because he was short, dark, ugly, a man, etcetera. And as we know, Claudia is very tall, very blond, very pretty, etcetera. But that didn’t stop him from trying.

One day my friend met up with him for coffee. The man was so depressed about life and the way things were going for him in general that he was only wearing jeans, a frayed jacket and sneakers. Very un-fabulous and very unlike him. Over coffee, my friend tried to perk him up but to no avail. He was seriously down and no amount of encouragement could bring him up again. When it was time to go, the two walked out of the cafe in the center of Vienna’s ritzy first district. Suddenly a long black limousine pulled up nearby. Men jumped out, obviously bodyguards, and rushed to open the back doors. First to climb out was the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld who, with his long white hair tied back in a ponytail and huge black sunglasses, was hard to mistake. Then out of the other side of the limo emerged— Claudia Schiffer! She looked ten feet tall and far more beautiful in real life than any photo they had ever seen.

The man who would be Claudia literally screeched and began digging frantically in his bag for a camera to capture probably the greatest, most unexpected moment of his life. There she was— four meters away and a goddess in every way imaginable. He dug more and more frantically but no luck— today in his depression, he had forgotten to bring a camera. Lagerfeld and Ms. Schiffer were swept into a building and disappeared. Their black limo whooshed away.

The two men waited a long time outside that building but no dice— they never saw her again.