We're All Just Props for Laguna Beach Reality Shows

The REAL "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County"

Stupid, stupid me. Here I thought Laguna Beach residents had to work their asses off to afford mortgages in Orange County's most idyllic beach-village community. As TheStreet.com's Michael Martin reveals in Life's a Surreality Show in Laguna Beach, MTV and Bravo have nailed it when it comes to exposing true Lagunatics.

If you've done your due diligence of watching shows like Laguna Beach or The Real Housewives of Orange County, you'll realize that most locals don't work 9-to-5. Days starts around 10 a.m. as locals come straight from their Equinox or Sports Club LA workouts to hit beach boutiques.

Guess all those cars clogging PCH, Laguna Canyon Road and Crown Valley Parkway every morning are filled with the "help" coming to and fro. Moving on . . . 

Showing off the fashion fruits of their morning buying binge, locals scout out their favorite swatches of sand. North and South Laguna is separated by Victoria Beach, one of the city's quieter residential beaches where locals do their Baywatch runs from their beachfront cottages along a pristine stretch of white sand. Those looking for more action hit nearby Salt Creek Beach to the south or Main Beach near downtown, which offer MTV-style social scenes that involve afternoon volleyball and suntan frolicking in the chilly Pacific waters.

Actually, dahhhling, one's Mexicans do the running and volleyball playing for one. Don't want to jack up our pedicures.

After the beach, locals head back to town for a light lunch and a bit more shopping. Anastasia offers a bit of both with a designer emporium carrying brands like Y-3 and Maison Margiela as well as offering a sleek eatery for French-Californian lunches of supermodel salads, rich pastas and sandwiches accompanied by bottles of pinot or Pommery. The crowd is one of the chicest you'll find in any OC fashion boutique, luring those well-known starlets of MTV reality shows and resident actresses looking to land their Saturday night outfits.

Then why the fuck does it take so long to find an open table at Wahoo's? Must be all those lesser-known production people on breaks from capturing the real people of Laguna. Trust me, it goes on similarly from there. I can't take any more. My brain hurts.