FEB. 10, 2006
DEALING WITH DEFECTIVE DETECTIVES
I've been reading a lot of mystery novels lately -- Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Spenser, stuff like that -- trying to get a handle on this whole "being a detective" thing.
Based on those books, and my experience working with Monk, here's what I've learned: Whatever makes someone brilliant at solving murders is going to make life a living hell for everyone around them.
That's especially true with Monk. You can't truly grasp the magnitude of his anxieties and phobias unless you experience them every single day and, God help me, I do.
Everything in his life has to be in order, following some arcane rules that make sense only to Monk.
But he's no more insufferable than all those great fictional detectives. Sherlock Holmes was a coke fiend. Nero Wolfe was this enormous fat man who never left his house. Spenser runs around quoting poetry all day, feeling superior to everybody and having Hawk, this sociopath he knows, shoot anybody who disagrees with him.
Anybody who has to work with one of these "great detectives" needs to know how to handle children (because detectives are all big babies who crave attention), needs to have plenty of patience (because they are irrational, obsessive, and totally self-centered) and can't have any social life (because they think your life revolves around them).
I've had a lot of odd jobs, from blackjack dealer to yoga instructor, but nothing ever stuck. I was a single mother, working as a bartender, when I met Monk. Being a single Mom takes enormous patience. So does being a bartender. And between my hours at the bar and my Mom duties, I had the social life of a devoted nun.
What I didn't realize in my misery at the time was that I was uniquely qualified to be the assistant to a great detective. Wow. Lucky me.
The problem is, there aren't that many great detectives in real life and when they're looking for assistants, they don't advertise in the classifieds.
About the only way to get his or her attention is either to kill somebody or get killed yourself.
So if you're thinking about becoming an assistant to a great detective, you might want to consider a different career.
Especially if you ever want to have sex again.
Past Entries:
- (2/3) The Tongue
- (1/27) Coffee with the Captain
- (1/20) Shaking the St. Francis Hotel
- (1/13) No 'Need' For Scooter
- (1/6) Baker's Dozen Drives Monk Do-Nuts
- (1/2) Taking Mr. Monk to the Theater
