The following can also be found in the book Chicago Stories 1998. Click here to learn more, and to download a free electronic copy.

In the spring of 1998, MTV, growing ever-tired of year upon endless years of The Real World, decided instead to simply cut to the chase and produce a new show called THE WORST ROOMMATE IN AMERICA. Naturally, they chose Chicago.

An exhaustive search was started and eventually two finalists were picked: Jack, a 28-year-old graduate of the Art Institute in performance art, now the overnight bean grinder at the Starbucks at Belmont and Clark; and Mary, a 26-year-old professional waitress who someday soon hoped to start a band as soon as she found some cool musicians, and who had broken off and reformed her relationship with her boyfriend Seth a total now of six times. MTV moved them into a dingy apartment at 3837 N Broadway where none of their bills would be paid and all furniture came out of the local Salvation Army.

The battle had begun.

The first night Jack got drunk at Crobar and brought a woman home with him. The woman smoked a pack of Newport Light 100s in their living room, ashing in Mary's potpourri holder. While making love at four in the morning the woman started screaming at the top of her lungs, “DADDY, OH DADDY, TAKE ME DADDY, FUCK ME JUST LIKE YOU FUCK MOMMY!,” prompting a visit from the landlord. When she left the next morning she left her phone number on the door with a magic marker.

Mary, not to be outdone, went to the Empty Bottle the next night and invited the band to crash at her place. The band snuck into Jack's room and smoked his entire supply of marijuana, as well as taking all his asthma medicine 'cause they had it on good authority from the guitarist in Pavement that you get really high when you get high while taking asthma medicine, dude, it's the absolute truth. The next day the band used up all the shampoo and stole Jack's collection of Henry Miller novels.

This meant war. The next weekend when Mary left town to visit her boyfriend Seth, Jack proceeded to methodically eat every bit of food Mary owned, leaving a trail of Post-It notes in his wake saying things like “IOU 1 box of Poptarts,” “IOU 1 can of Pringles,” “IOU 16 cans of Pepsi.” He also slept in her bed all weekend, which he not only masturbated in, but due to a corrosive liver brought on by his alcoholism, he also urinated in.

Seth, arriving with Mary on Monday and not realizing she was living with someone, angrily accused Jack of fucking his girlfriend and proceeded to beat him senseless, producing two black eyes and a swollen kneecap. The next night he broke up with Mary over the phone for the seventh time, prompting Mary to throw their answering machine through a closed storm window, hitting the landlord who was on the sidewalk below. Not satisfied, Mary proceeded to the kitchen where she smashed every dish, glass and bowl onto the linoleum floor, then laid in Jacks' bed until five in the morning, crying uncontrollably and asking Jack every ten minutes if he really loved her or if he was just living with her to save on rent.

Jack sensed he was precariously close to losing, so the next day he stole all 79 of Mary's CDs and sold them to raise the money to buy a Nintendo Playstation 64, which he would then play at full volume all during the night, switching back and forth between the two games he owned, “Tekken 3” and “NHL All Star Hockey 98.” Needing more time to perfect his technique, he quit his job at Starbucks and started sleeping until three in the afternoon. A week later, incensed at a hat trick opportunity he missed, Jack put his foot through their television screen, so that evening he called Mary's parents to inform them that Mary now had a serious cocaine addiction and would they please wire him $300 to cover her back rent? With the money he bought a 28 inch Samsung High Definition television with stereo sound, which he moved into his room, adding a padlock now to his door.

Mary sensed that the end was near and that one daring bold move needed to be done to clench the title. So in a fit of unbridled enthusiasm, one night she locked the door, poured gasoline over the entire place, and lit the apartment on fire, killing both herself and Jack and burning the entire apartment complex to the ground in a matter of hours.

Season Two will be filmed in Bucktown. Applications are now being taken.