Monk investigates the murder of a janitor, which is quickly followed by the poisoning of a patent attorney at the after-party for the presentation of the world's first self-cleaning vacuum. What they know about the case doesn't add up, and Monk is further distracted by swooning over the vacuum cleaner and avoiding Natalie's attempts to throw him a Surprise Party.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Amoral Attorney: Richard Meckler is a patent attorney, and perfectly willing to kill in cold blood for money.
- Birthday Episode: But of course! Monk, however, is a Birthday Hater, and all attempts to throw him a surprise party (except the last one) fails.
- Bloody Horror: Bradley Foster goes down into a garbage compactor to fix a jam. After he fixes it the episode's murderer flips the circuit breaker. The garbage compactor turns on, Bradley falls into it, and is shredded to pieces.
- Book Ends: Invoked by Natalie; Monk's last disastrous birthday party involved Cowboy Hank coming and the guests only staying as long as the entertainer did. For her final successful attempt to throw him a party, she tracks down Cowboy Hank. This time, the guests don't all leave when he does.
- Bridal Carry: Parodied; Monk carries the self-cleaning vacuum in his arms after it stops working.
- Clean Food, Poisoned Fork: The team are baffled as to how Richard Meckler was poisoned, as the only way he could have been was the soda he was seen drinking earliernote . The problem is, both Kurt Pressman and Meckler's wife drank from the same glass to see which drink was diet and didn't get so much as a stomachache. When Pressman tries to poison Monk at the end of the episode, Monk figures out how: Kurt put the poison in the ice cubes, which had not yet melted.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Good Lord, Bradley Foster does not die peacefully in that compactor.
- Disappointed by the Motive: Monk tells Natalie the dark truth about why he hates his birthday and refuses to celebrate it...his so-called friends only showed up to see TV entertainer Cowboy Hank and left immediately after he did. Natalie is a mixture of flummoxed and irritated when she hears the story.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Natalie is not amused at the cops' jokes at the crime scene. Then Monk unintentionally makes the group feel bad by describing how horrible the victim's death must have been. It involved hooks ripping him apart and then being compacted in what must be the world's deadliest trash compactor.
- Embarrassing First Name: T.K. Jensen seems not to like her first name, "Trudy", given her response to Stottlemeyer's dismay when he finds out. (The viewers know it's because of Monk's Trudy.)
- Failed a Spot Check: Monk should have realized that something was up during the car chase when Natalie called Stottlemeyer and the latter somehow manages to correctly identify the car chasing them...
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Bradley Foster was shredded by a compactor.
- Friendly Scheming: Monk is constantly suspecting that Natalie is preparing a Surprise Party for his birthday. In spite of that, she (together with Stottlemeyer) does manage to outsmart him by preparing a black Cadillac that's supposedly trying to kill them...but is in fact a pretext for the surprise party.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Thankfully, the janitor's death is not shown; all we see is a splatter of blood on a sign telling the number of days since the last accident.
- Greed: Kurt Pressman and Richard Meckler saw dollar signs when they heard of Foster's design for a self-cleaning vacuum. They decide to work together to kill him so Kurt can take the credit. Kurt then murders Richard so as not to split the profits.
- I Know You Know I Know: During one investigation at a crime scene, Monk suspects that Natalie is trying to spring a surprise party on him. Stottlemeyer asks him if he seriously thinks she would do something like that in a murder victim's house, and Monk goes through a convoluted series of sentences about how the fact that she wouldn't means she would. On this particular occasion, he's wrong.
- Just Here for Godzilla: In-Universe; Monk refuses to have birthday parties because on his tenth birthday, the only reason his friends showed up was to see TV sensation Cowboy Hank. They left when Cowboy Hank did, scarring Monk for life. Natalie points out to Monk after finally fooling him into a birthday party that this time, the guests didn't all leave when the entertainer did, proving they were there for Monk.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Richard Meckler murdered Bradley Foster to steal the designs and credit for a self-cleaning vacuum cleaner. Once Foster's dead, Kurt Pressman kills him to keep all the money for himself.
- Mathematician's Answer: When Stottlemeyer asks T.K. what T. means, she says it's her first name.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Stottlemeyer, Randy and a few cops are making jokes about the death of the janitor. Monk then goes into detail about how brutal his death was, causing them to feel terrible.
- Pet the Dog: Monk's mother is portrayed as somewhat distant (possibly in part due to mental illness of her own), but she was the one who hired her son's hero, Cowboy Hank, to come to his birthday party. Monk (who's almost never wrong) comments that the appearance fee must have cost her every cent she'd ever saved.
- Platonic Declaration of Love: While trying to convince Monk to play along with the surprise party idea, Natalie tells him he has friends who love him and want to celebrate his birth.
- Scary Surprise Party: For Monk's birthday, Natalie decides that she will throw him a surprise party, no matter what. After her first few attempts fail because Monk figures out she's planning a party and refuses to go with her, in the middle of a case, she has someone follow them, gets the captain to fake a warning about them being followed and in danger and convinces Monk to hide in a dumpster, which wheels them into the surprise party.
- Spotting the Thread: Monk realizes the poison is in the ice cubes when he notices his cubes are a different shape from the others. This allows him to foil an attempt on his life and solve Meckler's murder.
- Squee: When Monk sees the self-cleaning vacuum, he's practically beside himself with joy. At one point he even looks like he's praying to it like it was an idol.
- Stealing the Credit: Bradley, a former MIT engineer, designed a self-cleaning vacuum cleaner. He showed his designs to patent attorney Richard Meckler. However, Richard saw how much money such a machine would make, so he recruited his old friend Kurt Pressman to act as the machine's creator while he killed Bradley.
- Take a Third Option: Faced with hiding in either a dumpster or port-a-john, Monk declares that he prefers death. However, after a moment, he hides in the dumpster with Natalie.
- Title Drop: When the "killer" asks if Natalie has any last words, she stands up from the dumpster and shakily says that she does...before turning to Monk and smugly dropping the episode title.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Kurt's greed leads him to think that since the self-cleaning vacuum has already been patented, he doesn't need Meckler anymore.
