Adrian Monk was having one of his worst Mornings ever.
It began with an argument with his wife, Natalie. It was the first real shouting match in their marriage. They had argued over something simple – whether the pancakes should be cut into squares or not. He had complained that they were cut more like a convex polygon and she just exploded at him. As he thought about it now, it all seemed kind of trivial. I mean, she knew how much he required order in his life. She had been married to him for almost a year now and had been his assistant for several years. Why would she pick now to display such an inflexible attitude towards his eating habits? Still, this little spat was just the beginning.
Due to the argument, he was fifteen minutes late to his group therapy session with Dr. Bell. He had gotten to where he only needed to visit the good doctor about twice a month. But on a day like this, he really needed every minute. Adrian wanted to discuss Natalie's unreasonableness and Dr. Bell instead went off on a proverb about when he was getting his psychiatric degree and the professor wanted him to write an assignment a certain way – a way that Neven Bell did not want to. Adrian wasn't sure if the point of the story was you can't always get what you want or if it was about listening to another's point of view, and frankly he didn't care. The story took up a full five minutes of his already shortened session and just added to his frustration.
The last ten minutes were even worse. Dr. Bell informed him that in two weeks he was planning on retiring from his practice. After soaking that in, Adrian tried to reason with him. He tried tears. He tried bribery. He tried guilt. In the end, Dr. Bell indicated that he would be moving back to Tulsa where he could be near his aging siblings and an old flame of his who was suddenly single again. How audacious! What nerve!
Leaving the psychiatrist's office, he received a call from Tommy Briggs at the police station. There had been a homicide in the North Beach district and the new Police Captain Charles Keith had requested Monk's presence.
Parking his car at the crime scene, he began looking at the corpse's body which laid in the middle of sidewalk with multiple stab wounds. As he crouched down, he found half of a blood-soaked business card being clutched by the victim near his chest.
"Looks like the victim was trying to affect some sort of a business deal, got stabbed. Perp got scared and ran off." Said Adrian.
"Ran off?" asked Briggs.
"Half a card." said Adrian.
Picking up the card with his tweezers, he was going to put it in an evidence back when suddenly from out of a nearby alley ran a man with a mask on who mowed Monk over and grabbed the card. Not giving it a second thought, Adrian took chase but slipped and fell hard on a pile of dog feces when he turned a corner. At least, he hoped it was dog, not that that was all that great. With ripped trousers and poo on his leg, he became immobilized and the bad guy got away.
Keith had gotten to the scene just in time to watch it all go down. He screamed at and berated Monk.
"What was I thinking?" Keith said angrily. "Call in Adrian Monk, they said. He's a genius. They said. He'll solve the crime in five minutes flat. They said. They didn't bother to tell me that he would be such a pathetic little loser that getting a little dirt on him would cause him to allow a murderer to get away scot free."
"Sir, it was feces. Many pathogens and diseases are carried…" Monk tried to explain.
"I DON'T CARE! YOU PSYCHOLOGICAL FREAK SHOW!" Keith screamed. "A dead man lays in the middle of the street, but we may not catch the guy who did it because you're afraid of a little dog poop! Do you see the import of that, you lame brained piece of…"
"Sir!" Briggs interrupted, "Detective Monk is the most brilliant man we, or anyone else has working with them at this time and…"
"THEN HEAVEN HELP US! If former Detective Monk is the best that we have, then we are doomed." He said dismissively. "Adrian Monk will never work with my force again."
"Sir!" Said Briggs.
"NO! It's over. Monk may have been good in his day, but I have zero room for the defective detective messing up our operations today. We simply can't afford to have some psychological moron on the team that allows a murderer to get away. My understanding this isn't the first time either. I heard he once let a guy climb right down a fire escape next to him because he was afraid of heights. Is that true, Monk?"
"Yes sir." Adrian mumbled.
"What was that?" asked Keith.
"Yes sir, it is true." Said Adrian.
"Retire, Monk. You're done here." Keith said as he stomped off, ordering for additional resources to come look for the perpetrator on his walkie-talkie.
Adrian walked dejectedly back to his car. Reaching in his pocket, he discovered that he couldn't find his keys. He looked in the car and found nothing. Walking back through the crime scene he traced his steps. He finally found the keys lying in the pile of poo. He used the tweezers in his pocket to pick them up and felt like he might throw up. Finding a plastic grocery bag, he placed the keys in the bag and began walking home, leaving his car at the scene. Arriving at his apartment, he found Natalie was out and his only way inside was by using one of the keys on his keychain, so he sat down on the stairs and sulked as he waited for his wife to return home.