A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very, very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
I for one will certainly be celebrating Towel Day. I'll also hoist one in honour of Douglas Adams. May he Rest In Peace. Who knows, maybe he's already back amongst us as a chesterfield.
I for one will certainly be celebrating Towel Day. I'll also hoist one in honour of Douglas Adams. May he Rest In Peace. Who knows, maybe he's already back amongst us as a chesterfield.
One with a broken spring that pokes you in the butt no matter what part you sit on.
You could swear you could almost hear it giggling.
EDIT: Hah, from Wired article "This date is also Nerd Pride Day but these two events are completely unrelated."
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Last edited by Save Us Sutter; 05-25-2008 at 02:26 PM.
Don't Panic because...
