Most of us like to think of ourselves as good people — kind-hearted souls who mourn other people's misfortune, sympathetic types who would hate to see our neighbors suffer.

But any notions I may have had about my own generosity of spirit have been shattered by the recent rounds of changes in the runway configurations at O'Hare International Airport.

I've lived under a flight pattern in northeast Oak Park for 23 years. There are plenty of people living closer to O'Hare who have it much worse. But I hated having to stop conversation on my deck to wait for a plane to pass and the way the skies over my house were filled with a near-constant drone of engine noise.

Year after year I glowered up at the planes that seemed to be using my house as a navigation waypoint and imagined conversations between the cockpit and the control tower:

This is one zero niner, at 4,000 feet, heading directly over the Weber grill in the backyard. Clear skies; smooth air; marinated chicken thighs.

Roger, one zero niner; you are cleared for 3,500 feet. Skinless or skin on?

One zero niner — skin on. These people should watch their fat intake. Nice dog they've got out on the deck, though. Hope they see that tick on his neck.

Roger that, one zero niner. You're cleared to descend quickly to 1,500 feet as you pass over the bedroom with the open windows.

A quiet sky became a beloved rarity, a treat to enjoy when we went away on vacation, a dream that seemed unreachable unless I moved.

Until Oct. 17.

That was the day the new runway opened at O'Hare. The air traffic patterns changed; planes started taking off and landing primarily to the east and west of the airport instead of from other directions too — and so did the geography of airport noise.

To my amazement, the skies over my house fell quiet.

The difference was astonishing. Tranquillity reigned; above me on my walks were only clouds, birds and the sun.

I was ecstatic.

Sauganash and Norridge, however, were not.

Airport noise is a zero-sum game. The jet that doesn't fly over my house flies over someone else's. My happiness was paid for by someone else's suffering.

Noise complaints soared in newly tormented areas, as reported by my colleague Jon Hilkevitch, the Tribune's transportation writer. Homeowners described children being unable to sleep and walls cracking.

The chink opened in my decent-person armor.

My heart broke for the poor new noise sufferers. They had lost the airport noise lottery that I had just won.

But deep in my soul, some inner demon was saying, "Yes!" and pumping its fist.

The ugly truth was revealed. I was not, in fact, a nice person. I was a person who, in order to buy myself some relief, would throw Wood Dale or Norridge under the O'Hare noise bus.

My better self is ashamed, but my actual self is resolute: If someone has to have jets flying over their house, let it be someone else.

I rejoiced in my good luck and reveled in the quiet. But the karma gods were watching. In April, air traffic around O'Hare was reconfigured again. To reduce the risk of midair collisions, the Federal Aviation Administration eliminated the use of converging runways during the airport's busiest hours.

I pored over Hilkevitch's stories and the Tribune's graphics with selfish intensity. What would happen to my nice new quiet? Never mind midair collisions; what about me?

The new pattern would bring more jet noise to suburbs west and southwest of the airport and Chicago neighborhoods east of it, Hilkevitch reported.

As for my little corner of Oak Park, southeast of O'Hare, the answer is overhead.

The planes are back.

Not as low or as often as before, for which I'm grateful. But that remarkable silence is largely gone.

Chastened, I look back on those months of quiet with fondness and some disbelief. It feels now like a dream — an utter, unreal tranquillity that I wish could descend on Wood Dale, Sauganash and us all.

I don't really want to send the noise over my house to anyone else's; I wish we could all escape it.

I yearn for Chicago's airport to be moored in Lake Michigan, with trains in underwater tunnels whisking us silently downtown. Meanwhile, none of us living near O'Hare can rest easy. Today's airport runway winner can be tomorrow's sleeper with earplugs. The FAA giveth, and the FAA taketh away.

The other day I was riding my bike when a low-flying plane followed me down my alley, prompting another reverie.

Tower, this is three niner four, on approach path over a cyclist riding in — let's see, looks like ninth gear.

Roger that, three niner four. Cleared to descend to confirm that gear.

Three niner four — yes, ninth gear. And gosh, she's due for a manicure.

blbrotman@tribune.com