Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop

of San Francisco that he occupies. You’re more likely to find microscopic signs of life on the surface of Mars than on his countertops. And you could use his apartment to calibrate every level-measuring device on earth.

So when he runs out of things to disinfect or balance at home, which happens within minutes, he’ll start pleading with me to let him clean my house instead.

I know what you’re thinking: You’re wondering why I bother fighting with him about it. You would immediately say yes if your boss volunteered to thoroughly clean your house and pay you to sit around while he scrubbed.

But we’re not talking about just anybody. We’re talking about Adrian Monk. When he cleans your place, he practically strips it down to the studs and then puts everything back according to his arcane rules of order.

That may not sound so bad to you unless you’ve actually experienced it.

For example, after he empties and polishes my refrigerator, he puts all the leftovers, meat, fruit, and vegetables into individual plastic containers and Ziploc bags, labels them, and arranges them on the shelves by food group, size, and expiration date. (Call me crazy, but I don’t see the point of putting an apple in a transparent bag and sticking a label on it that says, Apple.)

There is no food, not even a slice of chocolate cake, that looks appetizing once it’s been air-locked in a Tupperware container and labeled. It becomes a scientific sample, and who wants to eat that?

He also rearranges all my furniture, all the decorations on my walls, and all the books and knickknacks on my shelves so that everything is centered, balanced, and symmetrical, regardless of what my personal tastes might be.

I think some casual disarray demonstrates character and makes a place feel lived-in.

But if Monk comes across something that doesn’t fit in as he thinks it should, he throws it out, regardless of its monetary or sentimental value to me.

When he’s done, it’s still our stuff but the house doesn’t feel like we live there anymore. It looks like a model home for a family of androids.

That’s not even the worst of it.

As part of his cleaning, he goes through all my clothes, jewelry, medications, and toiletry items in detail, making me account for everything and justify its reason for being in my life, much less in my room, closet, or drawer.

I’m a pretty liberal and open person, and I spend most of my time with Monk, so it’s not like there’s much about me or my past that he doesn’t know anyway. But everybody likes to keep a part of themselves to themselves, no matter how small or insignificant that part might be. That’s impossible if you let Monk into your house, much less let him root around in your drawers.

My daughter, Julie, is at an age when she’s especially protective of her privacy and refuses to allow me into her room unless she’s in it, and even then I practically need to submit a request in writing along with a photo ID. She’d never forgive me if I let Monk into her room, though it’s not likely to happen. She has a hamster, and even though it’s in a cage, Monk is not about to enter her room unless he’s wearing a haz-mat suit with its own air supply.

Despite all the problems and aggravations that come with letting Monk clean my house, sometimes I give in to his nagging anyway. It happens when I’ve been really busy or really lazy or both, the dirty dishes and laundry have piled up, and there’s enough dust on the shelves that housecleaning would qualify as an archaeological dig.

The day after our visit to the university was one of those times.

The key to surviving a Monk housecleaning is not letting him do everything all at once. I strictly limit him to certain tasks or areas of the house, like cleaning the kitchen or doing the laundry. But even so, I still have to spend an agonizing amount of time and energy justifying things, like why I didn’t incinerate a stained blouse instead of keeping it in my closet, where it could contaminate my other clothes.

“It’s an old stain,” I said. “It’s not transferable.”

I was sitting at the kitchen table, doing some important reading in the Enquirer. I was catching up on which stars were “flabulous” without makeup and photographic trickery to hide their belly fat and cellulite.

“Once a piece of clothing is stained, it attracts other stains,” Monk said. “And insects. If you wear this, you’re just asking to be infested with lice.”

Monk was in the adjacent laundry room, wearing an apron and dishwashing gloves as he folded my clothes. He wore the gloves in case he accidentally came into contact with bras or panties. It took me months to convince him he didn’t need to wear protective goggles as well.

He pinched my blouse between his thumb and index finger and held it at arm’s length, his head turned away from the garment as if it had been soaked in urine and infected with smallpox.

“It’s one of my favorite blouses,” I said. “I’ve had it for years. I wear it when I’m hanging around the house or doing messy projects because I don’t have to worry about ruining it.”

“With that insane attitude, why even bother washing it at all? Why don’t you just roll around in dirt and excrement all day and hang it up again when you’re done?”

“Maybe I will,” I said, just to needle him a bit.

A moment later, I smelled smoke.

“What are you doing?” I whirled around to see him holding a lit match to the shirttail of my blouse, setting it aflame.

“Staging an intervention,” Monk said, dangling my burning shirt over the laundry room sink. “You’ll thank me later.”

“You can’t come into my house and burn my clothes,” I told him. “How would you like it if I did that to you?”

“I begged you to burn a pair of my pants last week and you refused.” He dropped the burning blouse into the sink before the flames could singe his fingers.

“I’m not going to incinerate a perfectly good pair of slacks because you found a cat hair on them,” I said.

“That hair could have been home to a thousand fleas,” Monk said.

“It wasn’t.”

“What if they are Africanized killer fleas? They could swarm my bed tonight and kill me in my sleep.”

“There is no such thing as Africanized killer fleas,” I said.

“There are Africanized killer bees,” he said. “Who knows how many other insects have been Africanized? When you take me home tonight, we have to stop on the way and get some mosquito netting to put around my bed.”

“Maybe you should get steel mesh instead.”

“Good thinking,” he said.

“What if poultry and livestock have been Africanized, too? How will you protect yourself from the hordes of Africanized killer chickens and Africanized killer cows?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Monk said.

“You’re the one who brought up Africanized killer fleas,” I said.

“Only to make an important point,” he said.

“That it’s okay for you to burn my stained clothes.”

Monk sighed with relief. “I’m glad you’re finally seeing reason.”

The phone rang and I reached for it desperately, like a drowning woman grabbing a life preserver.

“Hello, this is Natalie,” I said.

“It’s me,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’ve got Monk’s check if you want to come down and get it. Otherwise, I can stick it in the mail to him.”

“Don’t move,” I said. “We’ll be right there.”

“There’s no hurry,” he said.

I turned my back to Monk, cupped a hand over my mouth and the receiver, and whispered, “If we leave right this second, I think I can stop Mr. Monk from incinerating all of my clothes.”

“You’re not letting him do your laundry, are you?”

“It’s your fault for not keeping him busy,” I said.

“That’s a big mistake. Let him wash your car or cut your grass instead,” Stottlemeyer said. “Otherwise, he could burn your house down.”

Lieutenant Disher was standing at the Mr. Coffee machine, staring forlornly into his open wallet as we walked into the Homicide Department squad room. He brightened when he saw us.