Towel Day
Posted By Caulimovirus on May 25, 2008
“That Eminently Useful Piece of Bathroom Cloth”
.: It’s that magical time of year again: May 25th, known to hoopies and froods the galaxy wide as Towel Day.
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 spent the good part of the morning naked but for my towel and reading the first book all over again. It’s a rewarding experience every time, not just for the delightful story itself, but because each time I read it I understand the internet a little bit better. Chances are you know somebody whose online pseudonym was lifted from the trilogy.
.: I’m thinking tonight is the night for some Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster madness. Now just where can I get my hands on some Ol’ Janx Spirit?
Surfing around stumbleupon.com I noticed your web site bookmarked as: 90% True » Towel Day. Now I am assuming you book marked it yourself and wanted to ask if social book-marking gets you a good deal of traffic? I’ve been looking at doing some bookmarking for a few of my websites but wasn’t certain if it would generate any positive results. Thank you very much. Kindest regards www