NAVAJOLAND, Az., October 14 - I couldn't believe it. Two phone calls in one day. First it was Karl Rove inviting me to Tempe as a guest of honor for the third presidential debate. Not 30 minutes later, Joe Lockhart was on the line, repeating the same entreaty. Well, I had to sit down and think about it. I knew that both of them, W. and the Giant, secretly wanted me, and that I was being fought over like a wishbone.

In Paris, things had recently been rather quiet, especially since Roberto had suffered one too many headaches, a condition that required his immediate return to Boston with the email address of Corporal Lance's grief counselor in his wallet.

But the thought of Arizona - all those cacti and scorpion. Then again, I figured I was better armored than an Armadillo, having been a Fashionista for so many years. So, I decided to cross the Atlantic to offer my support to the electoral process.

Unfortunately, things did not go exactly according to plan, largely because the 777 on which I was flying developed icing on its dorsal fin and had to land in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. From there, it was a short, 10-hour bus ride through the mountains to Telluride, Colorado, where I caught a Wild West Airlines economy crop duster for Phoenix. I asked for champagne, and the nice steward with a holster around his waist said he had Colt 45 for 5 dollars. I asked what I could get for 10, but he said that wasn't in his contract.

You can imagine the state I was in when I took a taxi from the airport to the hall, having flown low enough over Flagstaff to make out the face of a Navaho chief.

Well, Karl Rove came running right up and said he'd been saving a seat for me. It turned out, horror of horrors, to be located right beside Stepmoney, and strangely, right in the line of sight of the Giant's podium. You might recall that my last encounter with that woman ended very unsatisfactorily, when I ran for my life from her Beacon Hill brownstone. Needless to say, she was not happy to see me, and a terrible scene ensued - she pushed Karl Rove (and there's a lot of him to push), yelling those immortal words - "shove it, buster!"

As he picked himself up off the floor, dusting his frayed suit, I heard him muttering into a funny little microphone hidden in his lapel, "we've got a little problem here. But I'll find a way."

How strange, I said to myself, but before I could even complete the thought, up came Joe Lockhart, the plug of a transmitting receiver falling from his ear, and rescued me from the slimy clutches of Rove.

"I've got a wonderful seat with your name on it," he assured me, and then ushered me right up to Laura, who looks more and more like a frumpy librarian with each passing season. Well, that idea went over like a lead balloon, as she seemed to have taken offence at my comments about the White House dinner in April.

"No you don't!" she screamed, and then the Secret Service descended on us like a pack of wild wolves. One brut had his hands all over me, and I resisted and resisted, then placed my hand on his person in a sign of surrender.

That, unfortunately, led to further complications, and the calling up of a platoon of Marines. When the fracas ended, Joe Lockhart had a black eye, and some dirty little urchin had soiled my new Louis Vuitton genuine lamb fetus trench coat with a black palm print.

I found my own seat, located directly behind the moderator, Bob Schieffer.

The lights came up, the cameras rolled and the candidates emerged. The Giant smiled and tried to look warm and fuzzy. W. smiled and tried to look intelligent. Then they started talking. Each time Schieffer asked W. a question, I noticed that Karl Rove said something into that American pin on his lapel with a hidden microphone. At first, I couldn't figure out what was going on, but when I heard him say "pretend you're chasing the big chicken at half time", and W. immediately broke into a gleaming smile, the jig was up. Too bad about the spitball the Goobster had going in the corner of his mouth. I saw Laura shifting uncomfortably in her seat, but she was too far away from Rove to put through a SOS.

Well, then I looked over at Stepmoney. The Giant would grin and start in on an answer, and each time he passed the two-minute mark, the donkey brooch on her faux-Chanel jacket would sparkle in red. Then, he'd wind down faster than a flash flood in a canyon. When, midway through the debate, he finally got around to mentioning the fact he'd "married up", that woman's brooch sparkled green.

When it was all said and done, the news people, spin people and campaign people descended on me with bright lights and flash cubes wanting to know who had won.

I told that nice man from Fox news that I thought France had. He looked at me in disbelief, and then I explained that the windbaguette Chirac had warned against invading Iraq in the first place. And now that foreign workers were being guillotined, Monsieur Le Président was happy that French companies hadn't been awarded contracts to rebuild it after all.

Then it was the turn of the League of Voters focus group, who asked me if I'd decided who I would vote for in November. I said I had, and that it was a guarded secret, because just like my native France, I'm always on the side of the winner. And anyway, whoever ultimately prevails will be the loser, because the island around the rose garden is getting smaller, and the sharks more numerous.

Perhaps they thought I was mystic, because then the White House press corps, James Carvelle, and James Baker followed in hot pursuit. I caught a taxi to escape the media crush, and would have gone directly to the airport, had I not seen the neon sign for the Last Chance Saloon by the side of the highway. That's where I met the sweetest Navaho boy, John Big Eagle, who convinced me to take a retreat on the reservation before heading home. Well, I'm not in any hurry to go back anyway - it's dark and cold in Paris, but it's warm, friendly, and well lubricated over here.