Mike Psenicska can take a joke.

The Perry Hall, Md., driving instructor thought the kisses he received on each cheek from his male student were an unusual way to say hello. He told the student that American women don’t appreciate being stalked as they drive.

When the guy, still behind the wheel, pulled out a pint of booze, Psenicska, 62, began to suspect that the cameras weren’t really rolling for a documentary. And by the time the lesson was over, he knew he’d been had.

He is, it turns out, one of the comedic foils in the new movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

A former high school math teacher who has spent decades teaching teenagers the rules of the road, Psenicska is an unwitting co-star in the film, where he is taken aback by comic Sacha Baron Cohen’s clueless-foreigner-in-America shtick.

The movie, spun from Cohen’s HBO series, Da Ali G Show, is based on a simple premise: A television reporter from a backwater village in a Eurasian republic is sent across the sea to what he calls the “U. S. and A” in search of insights.

Cultures clash. Hilarity ensues.

Oh, and it’s done more or less off the cuff, with no warnings or explanations given, in hopes of milking genuinely astonished — or disgusted — reactions.

For Psenicska, the gag began in May 2005, when he was called by someone claiming to be producing a documentary on foreigners learning to drive.

As owner of the Perry Hall Driving School, Psenicska was very interested in the venture. “I have a lot of students who are immigrants,” says Psenicska. “I was kind of excited.”

He agreed to meet the documentary film crew on a Monday.

He signed a release. Pointing out that he has master’s degree in mathematics and was a high school teacher for 29 years, Psenicska admits he didn’t really read it.

“I should’ve,” he says now.

Psenicska welcomes his student to “our country,” and when the handshake comes with a kiss, says, “Well, I’m not used to that, but that’s fine.”

The student seems to not know how to use a seat belt.

“I thought maybe they didn’t have seat belts in his country,” Psenicska says. “He had it around his neck, between his knees.”

When the student uncaps a bottle of what looks to be vodka and offers Psenicska a swig, the teacher grabs the wheel and says, “You can’t drink that while you’re driving. It’s against the law.”

When Borat asks whether he can follow a woman in a car “and maybe make a sexy time with her,” Psenicska explains the concept of “consent.”

“That’s good, huh?” Psenicska says.

“Is not good for me,” Borat replies.

When he got home that night, Psenicska described the day to his wife. “She said, ‘It sounds like an old Jerry Lewis movie.’ ”

To his son-in-law, though, it sounded more like Da Ali G Show. When Psenicska checked out the HBO series, he says, he instantly recognized the British comedian as his driving student.