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THE TOWEL

A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Small Web

DON'T PANIC

"In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy,
the Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica
as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom."

The Guide Quotes 42 Towel Uses Characters Books His Life About

🧣 The Importance of Towels

From the Hitchhiker's Guide, Chapter 3

"A towel 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... [and] 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."

Known Uses for a Towel

The Guide lists the following uses:

1. Wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta

2. Lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V

3. Sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon

4. Use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth

5. Wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat

6. Wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

7. Wave it in emergencies as a distress signal

8. Dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough

9. Use it to catch a ride by waving it at passing spacecraft

10. Indicate your reliability and resourcefulness to potential hosts (a hoopy frood who knows where his towel is)

11. Trade it for goods or services throughout the galaxy

12. Use it as a makeshift bag for carrying small objects

13. Create a tent or shelter in hostile environments

14. Filter water or other liquids through it

15. Improvise as a bandage or sling for injuries

16. Signal to other hitchhikers across crowded spaceports

17. Muffle sounds when sneaking past Vogon guards

18. Clean your Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic when it gets dusty

19. Wrap around precious cargo to protect it during bumpy hyperspace jumps

20. Use as a conversation starter with other hitchhikers

The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

A creature so mind-bogglingly stupid that it assumes if you can't see it, it can't see you. Thus, wrapping a towel around your head is an effective defense.

The Guide also notes that if you have your towel, other hitchhikers will assume you also have your toothbrush, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc. They will then happily lend you any of these items that you might have "lost."

🌟 A Hoopy Frood

"Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."

(sass: know, be aware of, meet; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy)

Life... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast. — Douglas Adams