SEPTEMBER 7, 2007
DEATH AND TAXES

I always say that everyone's human and everyone makes mistakes, and I really believe that. Except when it comes to Mr. Monk. Oh, he makes mistakes all right. It's a mistake to try to measure the nose and lip piercings of kids on the street (to make sure they're symmetrical, of course), or to run screaming from every pregnant woman because he thinks her water might break and it could get on his shoes. Mr. Monk makes mistakes like that all the time. But he doesn't make mistakes – or I guess I should say doesn't usually make mistakes – when it comes to solving murders. Sure there've been a few times when he's kind of gotten off track a little, but there were always perfectly good reasons for that, like he was blind or there were naked people around or he could smell garbage. Okay, maybe not good reasons, but reasons. And the fact is, even in the worst of times he always manages to figure things out in the end. Mr. Monk always solves the case; that's what makes him Mr. Monk and not, you know, a normal person. Well, that's one of the things. There's a long list.

That's why I was so shocked when we found out Max Barton had been exonerated, and that Mr. Monk had gotten the wrong guy. I didn't think Mr. Monk had ever been wrong about a case before. The Captain didn't think so either. Actually, I don't think even Mr. Monk had thought he'd ever been wrong before. I didn't want to make a big deal about it in front of Mr. Monk because he obviously felt bad enough about it as it was, but it kind of made me wonder if maybe all our expectations had been too high, maybe we'd been putting more stock in Mr. Monk always being right than we should have. I tried to remind myself that he's human. He's not a normal human, granted, but he's human. He can't be right all the time. And I told myself it wasn't fair for us to expect him to be. (I told him all that too, but of course he didn't listen to me.) But I didn't want to believe it. I know it's pretty childish, but I kind of liked believing that there was no mystery he couldn't solve. I'm a sucker for a Hollywood ending, where everything gets wrapped up neatly in the end. That's one of the things I like about working for Mr. Monk – everything is always neat. Very, very neat.

Until this whole Max Barton thing. This really threw Mr. Monk – and me – for a loop. He really tortured himself (and of course me) over the whole thing. So of course I was incredibly relieved when it turned out Mr. Monk had been right all along. For one thing, it meant no more phone calls from Mr. Monk in the middle of the night wondering whether he should start his apology notes with "Dear Max" or "Dear Mr. Barton" or "Dear Mr. Max Barton." It also meant that an innocent man hadn't been sent to jail for 14 years, which was obviously great news. And best of all was that things could go back to normal (well, not really normal, but you know what I mean) with Mr. Monk driving us all crazy but, at the end of the day, solving the case.

Life is full of uncertainty, and I for one am wrong about things all the time. And I can live with that. But sometimes it's just nice to know that there are a few things in this life you can count on. Like death, taxes, and Mr. Monk always catching the bad guy.