Wednesday, September 23, 2009

How Monkish Are You?

If you've ever watched 'Monk' on the USA network, you know that Adrian Monk is a fastidious former San Francisco police detective and ace crime-solver who is a genius, but who is now a consultant because after his wife was killed in a car bomb his obsessive compulsive disorder got worse, to the point where it interfered with his work. On a case it often works for him, however, but his personal life is a mess. He has phobias about milk, rats, water, germs, order, cleanliness, the size and organizations of the vegetables on his plate, and 314 other quirks. The writing on the series is brilliant. One of my favorite lines is something he says to a girl he's taking out to dinner. They are walking up 70 flights of stairs because the restaurant is on the top of the building and he's too claustrophobic to ride the elevator. It takes quite a while and to make conversation on the way he asks what her religion is. He says he was born naturally but raised caesarean. This is the last season of Monk and we're watching eagerly to see that all the threads of his life come together. When we want another dose of Monk, we put on a DVD or watch reruns on the USA network or Sleuth, the mystery channel.

It's said that everybody has a little OCD and it shows up in various behaviors that may seem strange to other people. For instance, my Monkishness manifests itself in the way I eat M&Ms. I take a handful, spread them out, notice the colors and start eating the color that is represented by the fewest candies. Say there are three red, seven blue, five yellow, three green, etc. I'll start with the reds, then go to the greens. If two colors have the same number, I'll eat them alternately. As my family can tell you, I have many more Monkish behaviors than that, but it's typical.

So what's your Monkish behavior? It can't be stranger than mine.