A few days ago, during my weekly appearance with Lee Elci on 94.9 “News Now” radio, I was once again tricked by the host into verbalizing a vaguely liberal opinion on-air. It was something like, “Of the candidates currently running for U.S. President, the only one I remotely believe could pass a slime-detector test would be Sanders.”

BAM! The soundproofed door to the studio exploded inwards and a horde of ardent listeners poured into the room shouting slogans and thrusting pitchforks at my beer-rounded belly. The pitchforks were aflame.

After Lee forced them back and relative calm was restored, I cleared my throat and spoke into the mic. My tone and reasoned approach were reminiscent of Clarence Darrow’s “So I be written in the Book of Love” remarks during his summation at the Leopold/Loeb trial. In the aftermath, those once-agitated listeners returned, only this time they brought me flowers and cookies and we all had some laughs and unanimously agreed that “Axis: Bold as Love” is the best Hendrix album.

Then Lee — my good friend — observed, “Y’know, Rick, you actually DO look like Bernie Sanders.”

Well, hell’s bells!

Lee saw my wounded reaction and tried to pretend it was a contrived quip, but I know better. He wasn’t being cruel; it was just an honest appraisal that slipped out of his mouth.

Well sir, even in my days as a Rock Dude in a regionally approved-of band, I was always the ugly one. Plus, I’m decades down a weed-choked farm-to-market road we call “The Highway of Snickering, Marauding Time.” So at no point in my life have I winked in the mirror and chirped, “Watch out, Paul Newman!” For that matter, I haven’t looked in a mirror — period — since a fun-caked autumn night in a carnival funhouse, circa ’87. It didn’t work out then and it wouldn’t work out now.

For 74, Bernie looks well enough. But here are four things I’d rather Lee have said:

1. “I’ve been trying for years to put my finger on it. And it came to me. Rick looks like a picture I saw in an encyclopedia of a mummy that bobbed out of the tomb during a typhoon and was chewed by trout.”

2. “Whenever we see Rick, my dog weeps and I want to punch you in the throat.”

3. “Rick, I have Michael Flatley on retainer. The day your heart finally limps to a halt, he will deploy at once to my house and teach me a sprightly tango. And, oh, how we’ll dance!”

4. “Koster! You’re the big winner in the 94.9 ‘Thousand Dollars-a-Week-for-Life contest.’”