Things are not always what they seem — delusions abound. You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but before last week, I had never flown. I told this to many people and the reaction of all was unanimous surprise. “You’ve never flown before?!” Like I was some kind of caveman. I think it is entirely possible to be a typical Midwestern American and have never flown.

Where would I have flown to? When I was a kid I made the annual pilgrimages to my various ancestral homelands: Wisconsin and Missouri. All four members of my family drove there packed in the front of an old Ford pickup. We had one of those campers on the back and my mother wouldn’t let us ride in there because, in her mind, it wasn’t as safe as sitting packed in the front of the truck without seat belts.

We all have our petty fears and delusions though, don’t we.

There isn’t much call to take flight when you are a hayseed. Even bus travel is considered an unnecessary luxury. One of my aunts traveled by train from California, half of her visit was spent defending her “fancy choice of travel arrangements.”

Flight was considered rich man’s travel. Well, I can now go back to busses and trains with a better attitude because flying is not the great adventure I thought it would be.

Again, personal delusions about the nature of travel and its relations to social class.

Granted it’s fast as hell. We went from Des Moines to Atlanta in an hour and 30 minutes. That was nice. But the plane was so cramped it made a Greyhound bus seem luxurious by comparison.

Takeoff rocked. I loved that. Getting sucked back in your seat while the plane accelerates and finally breaks the bonds of earth — very moving. I nearly wept as Des Moines shrank away beneath us until only the lights were visible. I have dreamed of flying since I was a kid. I thought I might be wealthy enough and important enough to have to fly somewhere.

Delusions again rear their ugly pointy little heads.

Landings are tense, god knows if that clunking sound is the landing gear coming down or a bomb going off in the cargo hold. The only thing you have to go by is the flight attendant’s reaction and she is trained to be cold and emotionless.

In addition to Payne Stewart’s bizarre death and the EgyptAir crash hanging over my head most of the time, I spent hours listening to black box recordings of air crashes at www.airdisaster.com. to make sure I was as raw and edgy as possible for this new experience.

While I tried to maintain my cool composure during flight, I have to admit that hitting turbulence at 30,000 feet does make one think about impending grim death. As fear gripped my guy, I realized I didn’t have too many regrets in life except for listening to all those black box recordings. The last word on 90 percent of them is someone screaming “shit.” The other 10 percent is someone screaming “merde,” “mierde” or “sheisse.”

Ironically enough, these two disasters actually made me feel much better about my chances of surviving the trip home. How many times in your life have you ever heard about three air accidents in one week? It just doesn’t happen often enough to worry about. Statistically, I was on safe ground.

According to the FAA, air travel is as safe as ever but their goal is to make it 80 percent safer than it was in 1996 by the year 2007. Talk about delusions.

That is assuming there will still be air travel in 2007 what with Y2K looming over our heads, death cults threatening to destroy the world and Pat Buchanan running for president of the United States on the Reform Party ticket.

I don’t see what can be done to improve air safety beyond making sure everyone that enters the airport undergoes a cavity search for explosives.

Hell, I got checked in Des Moines and Atlanta both. Oh, sure it was random. They checked a woman with a bunny sweater in the line next to me. We both had facial hair so we both fit the profile.

The FAA is working on increasing security in more ways than making sure when Greg Jerrett flies, his luggage must be checked for explosives. But it’s all pretty vague.

By 2003, they want to increase their ability to detect improvised bombs and weapons that people might have on them or in their bags. Just open those bags and look but for the love of god hide the dirty drawers people.

I was never too concerned about terrorist action but I was concerned about the loud-mouthed Hawkeye fan sitting behind me who talked at the top of his lungs for most of the trip to a young hottie sitting two rows ahead of him.

The greatest risk in the air isn’t from terrorist bombs but obnoxious passengers.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily.