Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse

my shoulder and saw him taking a drink out of the water fountain.

I bolted out of my seat and hurried down the aisle after him. “Are you insane, Mr. Monk? That’s the deadliest water you can drink.”

“People drink out of water fountains every day.”

“Drinking airplane water is like drinking out of a toilet.”

“Dogs do it without a problem,” Monk said. “Doesn’t kill them. Chill out, hotcakes.”

Hotcakes?

“Mr. Monk,” I said firmly, hoping to get his complete attention. “Are you on something?”

“I thought we agreed you were going to call me Chad.”

“You are on something.”

“It’s a prescription Dr. Kroger gave me once to relieve my symptoms in extreme circumstances.”

“What symptoms?”

“All of them,” he said. “As long as I’m up, I think I’ll use the restroom.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. Wherever we were in San Francisco, he always made me drive him home to go to the bathroom.

“Where else would you suggest I relieve myself?”

He edged past me, opened the restroom door, and went inside. Monk was using a public lavatory. I would never have believed it could happen.

I continued back to the galley and asked the flight attendant for a drink.

“What would you like?” she asked.

“A scotch,” I said.

Monk emerged from the bathroom a moment later, not caring at all that he was trailing a piece of toilet paper from his shoe.

“Better make it two,” I said.