Despondently standing pool side, Montgomery thinks about the good old days. The days when they would swim almost every chance they could get and he could stretch his then young and sturdy limbs out in a protecting manner. His job was very important back then he’ll have you know. Without Montgomery the family would have gone through buckets of sunscreen in mere weeks. Yes they were a pasty lot. But that was good, they needed him and he gladly worked for them. Worked mind, he was compensated rather handsomely in joint lubrication and cloth sealant. That was of course only fair what with the hours and his sometimes suboptimal working conditions. No they had had a good thing going Monty thought.
The wet sting of frigid hosepipe water on his concrete foot brings Monty out of his sombre reprieve with a solitary thought.
“No respect around here anymore…”
How does one so suddenly and starkly find themselves in the post-good-old-days? Unfortunately this is a thought that has crossed Monty’s mind almost everyday since he was last expanded. He has become bereft of his most basic purpose. Oh sure, once every year or so there will be an occasion warranting Monty’s uses, but such an existence is almost not even comparable to those past days.
“God… that’s all I have become, a thing with ‘uses’.”
A wiggling interior acts again to bring Monty’s mind around. The bats were at least a new purpose.
Without Monty’s work being needed much anymore, he wasn’t compensated very often. This meant his pulley rope was frayed, his concrete base was chipped, his shade cloth was worn down, and his wooden limbs were splintering. These would be difficult realities for any proud umbrella to face, but even more so for the distinguished Montgomery Whortroff. The Whortroff family had been in the shade industry for neigh on two centuries at this point. Thank goodness Monty’s predecessors couldn’t see the state he was in now, that might just be too much for them to handle with their dated frames and ideas about how a ‘good and respectable’ umbrella ought to be seen.
As much as the bats had brought new meaning to Monty’s life, their compensation wasn’t exactly ideal by his standards. In case you don’t know, the exchange rate between joint lubrication and bat shit is not at an equilibrium.
Eventually the water subsides, leaving behind a very cold and grumpy umbrella, an umbrella recently cleaned of his bat shit.