Recently, I had to renew my driver’s license. I’m no Robert Redford, but the photo looks awful. I’m stuck with it for four years.

I blame the clerk.

There’s a lot to be said for capturing a moment in time, or an image, as photojournalists like to say, by using cheer and jovial banter with your photo subject. Maybe even just a wink or a grin. But if the photographer in question is unfriendly, then expect your ID to reveal that side of you, too.

“Does my hair look OK?” I asked, smiling to convey it was said tongue-in-cheek.

Greeted with a frown, I got only that; no verbal response. Maybe she couldn’t hear me behind the bulletproof glass. “Stand in front of the wall,” she said.

“Yes ma’am.”

I stood there, trying to muster a smile, but I could not. I tried, but the only expression I could generate made me look as though I’d just eaten moldy bread, washed down, of course, with curdled milk.

After about 15 seconds, the shutter snapped. During the 15 seconds, I tried to exercise the muscles in my face that control smiling, but they were nearly mute, like a car with a run-down battery trying to start.

“Wait over there,” the clerk said after the camera flashed as she walked to her work station to retrieve the tainted document that was to be my driver’s license.

“Yes ma’am.”

God forgive me if that poor woman had just gone through some kind of tragedy. It certainly couldn’t have been the stress of the job, as I was the only one in the office.

She handed me the license without saying a word, at least not to me – she was on the phone.

Now, if I’m pulled over, police probably will suspect I am a thug of some kind, based on my expression in the license photo. I fully expect to be searched, cuffed, then subsequently released after police realize I am just another victim of this take-this-license-and-get-outta-here process.

There’s something to be said for “pay it forward,” that wonderful phrase from the movie of the same title. But if what you’re paying forward is cold, unfriendly vibes, then that’s what moves on. When I got home, I grounded my son for leaving a sock on the stairs.

Really, I don’t live the illusion that everyone will be nice, but if you’re taking a photo I’ll have to live with for four years, give me a chuckle, for crying out loud. I’m not averse to being tickled, even, if that’s what it takes.

Where’s a good clown when you need one?

As it is, I will be recoiling in horror each time I open my wallet until late 2012.

Memories last a lifetime, don’t they?

It’s all attitude

Really, our country is in a foul mood, too. From hanging Sarah Palin in effigy in bird-brained California to fights and catcalls at rallies, it’s enough to make an American with sense want to dig a hole and make it home until Nov. 5.

The election and its parade of political ads that describe opponents as liars, socialists, Marxists, Bush-wannabes, communists, losers, deadbeats, antichrists, etc., is red-hot fodder for mood swings.

I get e-mails or Facebook messages from ultra-liberal Democrats in their condescending smugness encouraging all to vote for Obama. After all, it’s intellectual suicide to believe that McCain can do better.

I get similar communications from Republicans, though with less venom and certainly less attitude, unless you count Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh.

I’ve had it up to my nasty expression with this stuff.

It won’t be long, barring any kind of Election Day chaos, until all this goofiness comes to an end.

Then we can go back to our normal routine of having two countries in one, the Blue and the Red.

Can’t wait until fade to black.

— Andy Dennis is the assistant managing editor at the Daily News.