The Winter Olympics have arrived, that quadrennial phenomenon that should be called the “It’s Cold Enough Out There to Freeze the Whiskers Off a Polar Bear!”

I have nothing against people who enjoy winter sporting events. But I’ve had my fill of cold, having grown up in a drafty old farmhouse where you could see your breath when you crawled out of bed on subzero winter mornings.

We mortals watch, gobsmacked, as superhuman athletes perform superhuman feats of athleticism. Thanks to the TV commentators’ observations, we soon become critics. “His left skate slid two millimeters sideways when he landed that triple lutz,” you might mutter even though up until that very moment you thought that “lutz” was a brand of beer.

Many of the Winter Olympic events involve insane velocities. We’re talking about speeds that would result in a traffic ticket on most highways.

One of the scariest events is the luge, a sport wherein the athlete hurtles, feet first, down a steep, icy trough aboard a sled that’s approximately the size of a deck of cards. I don’t know how the sport got its name, but my guess is that if you crash, your legs will luge up into your chest cavity.

A scarier sport is the skeleton. It’s similar to the luge except that the athletes zoom down the super-slick ice trough face first! This sport was probably invented by a man whose last words were, “Hey guys, watch this!” Afterwards, they could only find scattered bits of his skeleton and that’s how the sport got its name.

Of all the Winter Olympic events I’ve watched, curling is the only one that I might be willing to try. The sport is conducted at a languid pace and involves stones and ice, and I’ve had experience with both of those things. The stones that I’ve moved are those that are picked from fields and the ice is the type that causes a guy to flail cartoonishly during the two nanoseconds between losing his footing and crashing to the ground.

But curling also elicits a smidgeon of suspicion. I’m thinking about the part where team members use brooms to sweep furiously ahead of the stone as it slowly glides toward its target. If I showed the least bit of interest in the sport, my wife would frequently point at the floors in our house and inform me that I need to practice curling.

As we’ve seen with Lindsey Vonn’s tragic experience, downhill skiing is among the most dangerous of the Winter Olympic events. It’s also the only snow-based sport that I’ve personally experienced.

Yes, it was only once, and yes, it was on an incline that many would describe as a bunny slope. But still, I clearly risked life and limb.

Our youngest son was born with an effortless, innate athletic ability. My wife and I are at a loss as to where this came from. I’ve been known to trip over a paper clip. On the other hand, I’ve marveled as my wife juggled cooking a meal, answering the phone, and doing the laundry — all while balancing a baby on her hip.

Our youngest son became obsessed with snowboarding at an early age. But we live on the prairie, so our longest and steepest inclines are the township road ditches. Whenever we received a substantial snowfall, he insisted that I use the loader tractor to construct a snow pile. This provided him with about ten feet of drop and a snowboarding experience that lasted maybe two seconds.

One winter, he talked me into taking him to a local ski park. The word “mountain” is in its name, although “good-sized hill” would be more accurate.

He strapped on his snowboard and I, being ignorant of the dangers involved, rented a pair of skis. I bolted the fiberglass blades onto my feet and grabbed the rope that pulls skiers up to the top of the hill.

The boy rocketed down the slope, carving graceful arcs, spraying majestic rooster tails of snow, and having the time of his young life. I had no choice but to follow.

I immediately discovered that my skis were defective. They lacked any sort of steering mechanism and had no brakes. I managed to miss the chalet at the bottom of the hill and sped toward the nearby highway. I could envision the headline: Local Doofus Flattened by Truck in Skiing Accident.

Thankfully, the highway’s upsloping embankment brought me to a halt. I duckwalked clumsily back to the chalet and removed the skis. Enough!

I should have been awarded a gold medal for Most Awkward Dad on the Mountain. Or, in this case, the Good-sized Hill.

— Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.