Codependent Collegian

Left: Duncan pleads his case

(Baltimore, MD) Coppin State sophomore Kyle Brennan and local homeless denizen Mitchel "Jay-Jay" Duncan recently got into a "spirited" debate over their respective states of impoverishment.

Duncan said that his situation the last few years has been "pretty bad."

"There are days when I don't even eat, and I haven't seen a doctor in six years," he admitted, rinsing his socks in a downtown fountain. "I share this park bench with pigeons and mosquitos, and people sometimes throw shit at me as they drive down the highway."

Brennan said that "a degree of relativity" needs to be brought into the debate.

"Look, man - I grew up in a wealthy, white, upper class suburb, and my parents bought me everything I asked for," he said, kicking a can down the street with his green Timberlands. "Now I eat Easy Mac and cheap sausage almost every day, and many is the week when the money runs out long before we need to make a beer run. I ask you - is this the American dream?"

Left: Brennan has now tasted real poverty

Duncan said that many nights he lies in fear of being attacked.

"There's a lot of really messed up people out here, people who would kill you for five bucks," he said. "I have been jumped while sleeping, and stabbed while waiting for a slice of stale bread at the soup kitchen. It's pretty rough."

Not to be outdone, Brennan said that college life is "mondo cutthroat."

"One minute this chick is my best friend, the next she's pulling a 98 on the exam and fucking up the curve for everyone else," he said, shaking his head. "It's dog-eat-dog at Coppin State."

The debate evaluation committee, composed of three of Brennan's roommates, gave the nod to the young business major, citing his "bitchin' rhetoric" and "lack of body odor" as reasons for awarding victory to Brennan.