

Towel Day - Don't forget your towel - cfontes
http://towelday.org/
For the best and craziest sci-fi book I ever read
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shortlived
"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar
hitchhiker 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
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."

<http://www.towel.org.uk/>

~~~
cafard
Reminds me of Evelyn Waugh's observation, after the Battle of Crete, that a
pillow is the most important thing an officer can take to war.

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MartinCron
I bought a few towels yesterday, and while I walked through the store with
them draped over my arm, I felt like I was ready for anything.

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tptacek
My wife packed a towel today on her way out to the airport. The boy packed one
on his way to school. You people --- by "you" I include Erin & the boy --- are
weird.

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umjames
I didn't know that this had something to do with Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy. I honestly thought it was about Towelie from South Park.

~~~
MartinCron
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what's known as a "generation gap"

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sparknlaunch12
Never heard of towel day. This may explain the guy on the bus who got on,
towel only. Respect.

~~~
peetahb
He perhaps is just a loon wearing a towel and not a towel day observer.

~~~
cema
A loon wearing a towel can still observe the towel day!

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TeMPOraL
Thanks for reminder! I almost forgot, being so absorbed in watching NASA TV,
as Dragon has just been captured by the ISS.

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elmindreda
I always carry at least one towel in my backpack. It has indeed proven to be
massively useful over the years.

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canadiancreed
Remembered to bring my towel and it proved quite useful for an improv trip to
the beach. Amazing how happy people can be when you come to their rescue with
a dry towel

