In an attempt to stabilize his shaky marriage, Captain Stottlemeyer redecorates his office with the New Age artifacts that his ""hippie wife,"" Karen, has given him, but he can't bring himself to watch the documentary that she spent forty-five thousand dollars to film. When Karen thinks that her documentary subject--the world's oldest man--was murdered, the captain rejects the suggestion as absurd but calls in Monk to pacify her. Unfortunately for the captain, Monk agrees with Karen, and Stottlemeyer finds himself on Monk's front porch with two packed suitcases. Monk, glad for a chance to repay the captain for helping him through his three-and-a-half year ""slump,"" invites him to stay as long as he needs to. Predictably, they both end up with frazzled nerves and very little sleep. Depressed over his own ""slump"" and his inability to solve a five-year-old case involving the death of a seventeen-year-old boy, the captain becomes even more despondent when Monk finds a clue that he missed in