I’m a college student, make decent grades and am working a forty-hour week during the summer.

I, as far as I can tell, am exhibiting behavior that is acceptable — even encouraged. So why do people look at me like I’m a worthless piece of trash?

I work in a warehouse and ride to and from work on St. Louis’ light rail system. If you’ve ever spent eight hours in a stuffy, non-air-conditioned building full of old clothes lifting boxes and moving things around, you know that you don’t emerge fresh as a spring morning.

Every night, I get on the train downtown. I’m usually hot, sweaty and dirty. I often come off the train feeling even dirtier.

Almost every time I get on the train, anyone wearing a suit or nice clothes, fresh from a day in the office behind a desk, moves a few steps away. Those sitting quickly turn away. People look at me like I’m some bum.

Women pull their children closer when I sit down across the aisle. All because I put in a hard day’s work.

I’m thankful I didn’t grow up in a family that would have had to be supported by my paycheck.

But lots of people do, and I can’t imagine knowing what it would feel like to get those kinds of stares every day because my clothes were old, or my hair was scraggly or because I smelled when I got off work.

Makes me realize more everyday why people become thieves and drug dealers.

Synthetic, suburban strip-malled America loves to preach the virtue of a hard-earned dollar, but it doesn’t want to have to come in contact with its pupils unless they’re behind a counter in a paper hat or under your car with a set of tools.

The fact that these people have lives, bills to pay, children and families is something that doesn’t cross America’s mind.

The fact that these people have feelings, emotions and self-dignity — well, that’s beyond comprehension.

God forbid you should have to share space with one of them on the train! Them and their hard-earned dollar?

Pushing buttons and staring at a screen, having a power-lunch or standing around the water cooler, listening to the latest joke that someone got on e-mail. Earned? Yes.

Hard-earned . . . Let’s face it — most of these people don’t know what it feels like to break a sweat while working since they mowed lawns for baseball-card money.

The looks I get on the train remind me of people looking at a snakepit at the zoo during feeding time.

The words “get a job” roll so easily off the tongues that have never had to go pound the pavement for employment.

A place in Daddy’s company, a call to an old frat buddy, or whatever, these people don’t know what the hell it means to have to do real, hard work. And when you do it, they treat you like a second-class citizen.

I’ve flipped your burgers, washed your dishes, made your copies and sold clothes to your kids, which they paid for using the credit card that you gave them.

If I were a waiter at a nice restaurant instead of a kid working for minimum wage, would you scream at me and cuss at me and degrade me in front of an entire restaurant?

Ever heard of a “Protestant work ethic?”

` It is one of the values our great nation was founded on. Do you know what it means?

Because there was no way to tell the “saved” from the “damned,” the Protestant world began to look for clues and draw inferences. One of the most important indicators of the state of a man’s soul, Calvin believed, was his wealth.

This is one of the values brought to us by those Puritans who are so revered by the flag-waving set.

The middle class is shrinking, jobs are going overseas and less than a quarter of the adult population in this country has attended college. Even college graduates, especially those in the arts and sciences, are a dime a dozen.

The much-lauded minimum-wage increase still won’t put a family of three above the poverty line, assuming one paycheck. But have you looked at child-care costs lately?

America is on a collision course with its own destructive subconscious.

If you watch TV commercials, you’d think the only well-off black people in America either play sports or own a McDonald’s.

The rat race is faster than ever, and even less people can get on.

The compulsive drive for wealth and status and the denigration of those who carry this country on their backs do not provide a secure foundation for a bridge to the 21st century.

Wake up and look at yourself, Daddy Warbucks. All this time you thought it was money, but you’ve been rolling in your own filth.

Suppose you live in the ghetto all your life. TV, school, the movies all promise you happiness if you get the right car and the right clothes.

And those who do have the right car and the right clothes seem to have some kind of socially-approved license to look down on you.

Slinging burgers only means more ridicule from those people, as they scream for their Egg McMuffins because they are late for work.

Now, wouldn’t you be tempted to sell drugs? It’s not right, but it’s honest. Crime is the rat race for those who didn’t have a head start.

Think about it.

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Rob Ruminski is a sophomore in history from St. Louis.