Jerrett (33 years old). Jerrett is the second oldest of three siblings with an older brother and a younger sister. His parents divorced when he was 14. He is a graduate of USC with a degree in business, and then he worked in management consulting for three years. Afterward, he began an MBA program at Wharton, but he dropped out after one semester due to a compelling job offer in product management. He is currently VP of Sales for a major food distributor, and he works remotely most of the time. He lives with his wife of seven years and 5-year-old son, but he frequently takes what he tells them are "business trips" to spend weekends in Vegas with the woman he has been seeing for the last four years. She lives in Seattle, but she and Jerrett have agreed to meet in Vegas as a neutral meeting place. Jerrett enjoys gambling, and has managed to keep that vice a secret from his wife by siphoning off a portion of his salary into a hidden bank account that she is unaware of. (He files the couple's taxes each year, so she doesn't notice any "missing" income.) Unbeknownst to him, his wife is currently considering leaving their marriage and leaving him with the responsibility of taking care of their son.
Sadie (31 years old). Sadie is a nurse at the local hospital. She graduated at the top of her university class and shortly thereafter married her high-school sweetheart. After three years of marriage, she filed for divorce from her ex-husband because of his heroin addiction. Four years ago, she met her current husband, Fred, who was one of her patients at the hospital. He came to the hospital following a workplace accident at the warehouse distribution center where he works. Sadie and Fred have been married for two years and have been unsuccessful in their attempts to bear children, with Sadie experiencing a miscarriage five months ago. Sadie is highly disciplined and organized in how she runs her life, handling her and her husband's finances, attending yoga class five days each week, and maintaining a strict diet. Chocolate is the only junk food that she permits herself to eat.
Josh (28 years old). Josh was an overweight kid throughout elementary, junior, and high school because of the abundance of sweets that his parents bought growing up. He was bullied incessantly for both his weight and flamboyance which resulted in a later diagnosis of anxiety and depression. Josh attended community college for five semesters but did not complete his associate's degree. While in community college, he worked part-time at a local retail store, eventually being promoted to shift manager. He also began going to the gym, and after losing over 100 pounds, he became obsessed with fitness and nutrition. He ran his first marathon five years ago and has run at least four marathons every year since. Today, he works part-time as a personal trainer at his gym, but he is struggling to make ends meet financially, as his gym does not provide him health insurance to cover his ongoing psychological therapy. He has been aggressively pursuing a romantic relationship for the last three years to no avail due to, as he characterizes it, the unwillingness of Bikini Bottom guys to commit. Josh is not publicly out and is uncomfortable with any references made to his sexuality.
Brandon (42 years old). Brandon is an ex-Marine who attended the University of Nebraska after completing his service. He was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity and received a degree in political science. He works a relatively mundane job in City Hall processing permit applications for residential and commercial development projects. He lives with his wife and his two daughters (ages 8 and 6). His mother also recently moved in, as she suffers from dementia. At times, Brandon has wanted to return to school to pursue a program in architecture, but he feels that he could not afford to pay for school while raising two daughters. In addition, he feels that he needs to spend as much time at home as possible to help care for his mother.
Mary (78 years old). Mary is a retired schoolteacher who lives with and takes care of her mother, Barbara. She is one of seven siblings, four of which are still alive but live far away (mostly to maintain distance from Barbara). Mary's husband passed away 24 years ago at the age of 56 from bone cancer, after which she became jaded and generally unpleasant to be around. As a result, her three children (two sons and a daughter) keep minimal contact with her, and Mary has never met her two youngest grandchildren. Mary resents her mother for choosing to obtain costly ongoing life support, which has for decades eaten away at the inheritance that Mary was hoping to receive.
Barbara (110 years old). Barbara grew up in New York City. She met her husband, a farmer, when she was 17 and they were married when she was 19. Together they moved to southwestern Kansas and had seven children. The Great Depression hit as many of their children were in their teenage years, and the family's tight financial situation put a heavy strain on the relationship between Barbara and her children. After the Dust Bowl decimated the family's livelihood, they moved westward. Barbara's husband managed to open and operate a successful hotel chain, but despite the family's improved economic situation, Barbara maintained an austere home environment. Her husband eventually sold off the hotel chain and passed away three years later at the age of 72 (and she was 70). Barbara had two strokes in her 70's and has had ongoing life support since she was 79. She moved in with Mary and her husband the following year, requiring costly retrofits to Mary's home to accommodate Barbara's medical needs. Barbara's greatest fear is death.
Douglas (37 years old). Douglas and his wife own a psychic business together; he conducts tarot card readings and she is a fortune-teller. They have attended Burning Man every year for the last three years, and are "very excited" to return this year. One of the foundational pillars of their marriage was that neither ever wanted children. On the night of their wedding reception, Douglas and his wife drove to the hospital for him to obtain a vasectomy. In his spare time, Douglas enjoys gardening, reading, playing the flute, and meditating.
Joseph (54 years old). Joseph is a farmer who specializes in growing and harvesting barley. He grew up in the house he currently lives in and did not obtain more than a seventh-grade education. In recent years, his livelihood has been threatened by the competition brought about by agro-businesses, but he has been kept afloat by sales of his crop to an organic grocery store that only purchases from small, local vendors. While munching on a chocolate bar, he spoke about the store: "It's real 'spensive, but I sure is glad fer it."
Fitzpatrick (30 years old). Fitzpatrick is a licensed real estate agent specializing in corporate office parks. He is an alumnus of the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he earned a reputation for being a party animal and a ladies-man. In college, he was arrested for public indecency and belligerence and held in the county jail overnight. Charges were dropped when it was revealed that he had actually been fully clothed and was not, in fact, indecent--he was just ugly. He is currently in his third marriage, which has lasted one year and three months so far and is his longest marriage to date. His previous marriages lasted six months and thirteen months.
Tom (39 years old). Tom is a professor of mechanical engineering at the local university. He obtained his bachelor's degree in physics from UCLA and his master's and PhD in mechanical engineering from CalTech. He held a post-doc position at MIT before being offered a tenure-track professorship at his current university. His students generally regard him as a good professor, although student course evaluations have revealed that students' chief complaint is that he often explains concepts in an extremely long-winded and circuitous fashion. Tom has no history of romantic relationships, perhaps due to his compulsive hoarding habit. He is active on Yelp and has achieved Elite status for the previous six years.
