So, when you meet Tim, just don't mention the, you know. I mean, time has passed but he's still a bit sensitive about it and all. It totally wasn't his fault.
See, he lives above an Olde English Pub, which was built a few thousand years ago and is more like a tunnel in a torture chamber you'd escape from rather than anywhere you'd actually keep your things and constantly return to.
But Tim is British so everything IS WHAT IT IS. That means he can be overcharged for a place that is covered with an inch of black, sooty pub grime from years of burning the food and then wiping it down with ale soaked rags. I'm kidding. They've never wiped it down.
While it does have running water, that seems to be a downside. It's always running. There are weird pipes sticking out of windows spouting water at odd times of the day. Depending on the water pressure of the window spouts, you can garner whether or not the sink will work.
There's also a lot of noise below of course, because it's a pub. And there are pub like things going on downstairs like open mic nights and football match viewings and sheep tossing. But there's also noise above us. It sounds like someone is trying to break in though the roof. I keep thinking it's an intruder, or that the English gale force winds are going to peel off the ceiling. But Tim assures me the clomping above is just the mice.
When something goes wrong with the pub, the owners patch it up with a blowtorch, a saw, and a vacuum. Then they coat it with paint. When they aren't fixing things, they throw these items in a heap in the hallway of Tim's living quarters that they also consider 'storage'.
The narrow hall from Tim's bedroom to his water closet and bathroom is already a gauntlet of 5 steps, mouse-traps, paint rollers, an old futon his flat mate discarded in a heap, and several other odd steps where the floor doesn't quite meet the adjoining floor. After tripping and breaking three toes, I've been peeing in a cup in his room.
Now, I've commented that this set up seems a bit dangerous, but then again I'm an American and by nature all I ever do is complain. Plus, Tim is stealth and quick on his feet, like an Anglican panther and does parkour-styled moves, bouncing off walls and over equipment swiftly and deftly, even in complete darkness. He is never phased.
Until... one day a child's neon green bike appeared in the hall. It was just parked there, large and imposing, making it almost impossible to get by. As I tried to maneuver around it, the folds of my dress and my handbag got caught in the handlebars, the faux fur trim of my coat tangled in the spokes. Tim rolled his eyes at me and quickly hurdled the bike like an Olympian. He landed on one foot by the imposing propane gas canister that fuels the blowtorch and smirked at me. But he hadn't counted on the paint rollers. The God damned paint rollers! The rusty things had been kicked about the hall and were now right in his path. He took another step and whoop whoop whoop, up in the air he went, banana peel style, and came down back first. He put his arm out to brace himself and the big gleaming saw greedily severed his hand clean off.
The hospital was out of artificial hands. They had a run on them...so they gave him a hook. Just like Captain Hook! Which, given the nature of his old-timey surroundings, is really perfect.
He can even use it to patch things up around the pub now, though he gets quite cross when they ask him to do manual labor. I mean, after all that's happened, wouldn't you?