WHO WAS THAT WOMAN?

By CALVIN TRILLIN

One morning last week I woke up absolutely certain that, just before falling asleep, I'd seen Elizabeth Dole being interviewed by Jay Leno on the Tonight Show, and she was wearing blue jeans, motorcycle boots and a black leather jacket with chains hanging off it.

Then, about midmorning, I started having some doubts. Maybe that wasn't Elizabeth Dole. Maybe I'd fallen asleep while watching the Tonight Show and dreamed that Elizabeth Dole, snapping under the strain of having remained that focused for that long, had donated 38 ladylike suits to Goodwill Industries and become an outlaw biker. Maybe I was suffering from what my mother used to call an overactive imagination.

The uncertainty was causing me some concern. It made me wonder, for instance, whether I might have only imagined hearing that Ross Perot was going to be doing a guest shot on Seinfeld. Then I got a telephone call from a friend of mine. "Did you see Elizabeth Dole on the Tonight Show wearing a black leather jacket and motorcycle boots?" he asked.

"I think so," I replied cautiously. "Although television reception at our house hasn't been absolutely perfect lately. Also, I'm overdue for a checkup at the eye doctor's. But I think I saw her."

"Great," my friend said, letting out what sounded very much like a sigh of relief. "Excellent. Just checking." And he hung up.

My friend's call made me realize that I am not the only person whose grasp on reality was shaken by the Tonight Show appearance of Elizabeth Dole in motorcycle duds. In fact, I believe our response to her appearance was symptomatic of a problem more widespread than people have been willing to admit.

Political figures, who are increasingly desperate to show that they're regular folks, do a lot these days that is quite literally unbelievable, and they tend to do it on television. Citizens who witness some totally unlikely and thoroughly bizarre television appearance--sometimes for no more than a split second, since the use of remote-control devices is an aggravating factor here--may wake up the next morning wondering whether they saw it or not. Then they remember what their mothers said about overactive imaginations.

Think of the impact on some innocent channel surfer who, in looking around for a diverting sporting event a while back, was making his way past MTV at the moment Bill Clinton was discussing his preference in underwear.

Remember: the surfer may not have known that the President was going to appear on MTV to answer the questions of young people, and he may have heard only a clause or two of the President's remarks before going on to the next channel, and he may not have truly registered what he'd heard until halftime in the Australian football game from Melbourne he had finally settled on.

He probably got a very odd look from his wife at breakfast the next morning when he suddenly blurted out, "Could it be that I heard the President discussing boxer shorts on television?"

I later learned that, before I tuned in to the Tonight Show that night last week, Elizabeth Dole had arrived onstage on the back of Jay Leno's motorcycle. That's why she was in the biker getup. That made it understandable, sort of. At any rate, the person I saw really was Elizabeth Dole. I hope that means Ross Perot is going to do Seinfeld after all. I'm looking forward to a conversation between him and Kramer.