When people from warmer areas of the US of A (which, if you think about it, is everywhere in the lower 48 except maybe International Falls) talk about living here year-round, they always say the same thing: “I could never deal with a winter that cold!”

Cold is no issue with me — even double-digit sub-zero. Nor should it be, since ultimately it’s not all that hard to deal with. All you need is the right clothing and attitude and you can wander out and about as long as you want.

However, to me, rain is a whole different story.

Rain, especially cold rain, puts the damper on me as literally as it does figuratively. There’s nothing I can do outside — at least not without cursing heaven, earth, the barometer and my lousy luck.

Fortunately, we don’t get a lot of rain here. And when we do, it’s almost always of the civilized variety — pretty much what the Irish call “a soft rain.” For sure, we don’t get monster downpours like the poor bludgers in the Pacific Northwest. Lordy Lord, if you’ve never been there during their rainy season, you don’t know what you’re missing … and you can thank your lucky stars for that.

Of course, like us with the cold, they’ve learned to cope with the rain. And also like us, it comes down to gear: Heavy duty raincoats, hats and boots, remote garage openers, and of course the ubiquitous umbrella.

I never owned an umbrella for a bunch of reasons. First, I’ve almost never needed one. I have decent rain gear, and when there’s a rotten downpour, the only way to get me out in it would be at the point of a bayonet. And second, an umbrella would just be one more thing to shlep, and one more thing to lose. And let’s get real: With my tendency, if not mastery, of losing things, an umbrella might get me through a few cats-and-dogs days before I accidentally bestowed it on some lucky (and larcenous) stranger.

That said, my Sans Umbrella Days came to an abrupt end about 10 years ago in Virginia.

I was there for my great-niece’s Bas Mitzvah and spent the night before it in a motel a long bus ride away. It rained that night, but not a lot. But the next day, as I got ready to leave for the ceremony, the rain sheeted down like an Old Testament curse. It was such a downpour I literally couldn’t see the other side of the street.

Luckily, the motel was an old one in the middle of a small downtown, so the street was lined with stores. And even more luckily, all the stores had awnings, so I could wend my way, partially shielded, to the last store. But after that, it was about a quarter mile to the bus stop, in wide-open Monsoon Country. Even if I sprinted to the bus stop in Olympic-record time, I’d still get soaked to my Islands of Langerhans. Then, when I showed up at the synagogue, I’d look like something the cat drug in.

I had only one hope — find a store on my side of the street that sold umbrellas. Which I did.

Of course I knew as much about umbrellas as I did about Trobriand Island fertility rituals, but I did know this: I was gonna find the biggest umbrella they had. I checked out their selection and bought The Dreadnaught. And if that wasn’t its name, it should’ve been since it had the wingspan of a pterodactyl.

Later, I found out they’re also called golf umbrellas. Luckily, you don’t have to play golf to own one, or I would’ve been doomed. I’ve neither the patience to spend hours whacking a ball all over hell’s half acre, nor the constitution to spend a couple more hours sending my liver to Vital Organ Valhalla.

Once I left the store and pushed the Open Sesame button and the umbrella unfurled, I became a Dope Transformed. There’s no other way to put it: I was high and dry, untouched by the rain and The Human Condition itself! I fairly skipped down the rain-splattered streets to the last store and then diddy-bopped my bad self over to the bus stop, fully protected from the hell-bound H2O. Meanwhile, my umbrella-deprived inferiors scurried to and fro, desperate, shivering, shaking, and looking like half-drowned rats.

An image flashed in my mind. I was an ancient Indian Shah, being carried through the streets of Agra in my richly-appointed palanquin, whilst the peasants, barefoot, barely-clothed, malnourished, looked on me with undisguised envy.

OK, I’ll grant you my imperious attitude is disgraceful for a Dope of the People like me. But don’t blame me — blame the umbrella. Those feelings hit me only when I’m in a rainstorm, rockin’ The Dreadnaught. The rest of the time I’m the humble lad My Home Town knows and adores. And since we almost never get heavy rain here, it’s almost never an issue. But a couple of weeks ago, it became one.

It was take-the-pipe weather — cold and grey with on-and-off downpours. One look out my window and my spirits plummet. But pro-active fellow that I am, I decided to go to Nori’s and swill some non-GMO, gluten-free and certified organic potion guaranteed to restore my wide-eyed optimism. Of course The Dreadnaught was with me, doing its sainted thing from house to car, then from car to the Pendragon parking lot.

I can’t remember what exactly I drank — something chock-full of herbs, barks, and grasses that grow only on one isolated peak in Sikkim, or some-such. And while it tasted like a combination of old milk and fresh tobacco juice, it did improve my disposition. And I knew it’d soar once I left the building and strutted to my car, both The Dreadnaught and my self-image in the places they should be.

I stepped outside, stood under the overhang, and pushed the Open Sesame button. And when I did, instead of hearing the umbrella slide open with a reassuring Whoosh, I heard a grinding Shpring, Sprang, Shproing! Then it clanged about halfway down the shaft, ground to a halt, and chunks of metal of all sizes flew out and about.

The damned thing was busted, not only beyond repair, but beyond recognition as well. It was as useless as a life coach on the Titanic … post-iceberg.

And now I was going to get an ice-cold shower … and a major ego-drubbing as well, since in addition to looking like I didn’t have the sense to come in out of the rain, I looked like I didn’t have the sense to open my umbrella either.

This raises the inevitable question of what the move from Nori’s to my car was like. But since you can figure that out, there’s no need for me to repeat it, or relive it.

However, there is yet one more question, which I will answer: I did not get a new umbrella, and I will not get a new umbrella.

And I’ll thank you in advance for keeping this strictly between the two of us.

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