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 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
vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly
on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft 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 avoid the gaze of the
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal,
it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); 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.