WHAT’S SO FUNNY: It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a drag

I’ve been doing some long-distance flying this summer, and it’s given me a new ambition, which is to find a way, someday, to take the train instead.

I’m not generally an airline griper, one of those people who say, “Look at this — I’m paying $270 for a bag of almonds.” No, Stanley, you’re paying $270 for the miracle of flight.

My problem is that the appeal of that miracle has largely drained away for me. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become a travel weenie.

It’s not just the security delays. It’s not that I can’t make hijacker jokes in the line or have chocolate pudding and shampoo in my carry-on. I know we’re fighting Terror. That doesn’t bother me. I’ve always been terror-conscious, even when it was different terror; I’ve been in a war on terror my whole life.

No, it’s not this annoyance or that annoyance. It’s the whole annoying thing.

It’s the atmosphere in the plane, especially on long flights. When you inhale, the air has a metallic taste, as if it had zinc in it.

It’s the seats in coach, which, no matter how you rearrange yourself — and by the way, please keep your seatbelt fastened — are not so much seats as little cushioned purgatories.

It’s the turbulence, and the wait to get into the restroom, and the turbulence while you’re in the restroom. It’s the announcements from the pilot just as you’re finally dozing off. It’s the screaming baby when you take off and the wobbling bouncies when you land.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I could sleep. I can sleep on a train. I used to commute to Chicago and they had to wake me up at the terminal when they were cleaning out the cars. I could sleep across three states on a train. Real states, too, not like New Hampshire.

And you don’t worry as much on a train. They have accidents, too, but you’ve got a sporting chance of surviving them. You might be late and you might go off the rails, but you don’t suddenly lose altitude.

The trouble, of course, is that it takes days to get across country that way, whereas if you fly, and if your flight isn’t canceled, it only seems like days.

Enough. I might as well stop grousing because I’m sure I’ll fly again. I just don’t know how much longer I can do it without bursting into tears in front of the flight attendant.

The terrorists haven’t won, but the irritants are getting to me.