Today is the official Towel Day therefore I’m writing this blogpost on the very important topic as my way of honouring Douglas Adams – a man who gave the world so much wisdom and left us too early.
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellear hitch hiker can have. Partly it has a 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 around your head to ward off the noxious fumes or avoid the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal; you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems clean enough… (The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a trilogy in five parts, 1995, page 31)
For obvious reasons I always travel with a towel. Preferably it is a light one but it still needs to be big enough to cover me up properly if I need to transfer myself from a common bathroom to a changing room etc. While traveling the galaxy in general and planet Earth in particular I have for example used my towel to pad my riding jacket when underestimating the temperature difference between Madrid and the mountains up north and constructing a mosquito protection head device for my fiance when visiting an island in Sweden, I’ve worn it as a skirt when I didnt have anything else to put on, slept under it, had picnic on it and used it to dry myself after a shower or a swim in a lake.
My bike has its own towel. It is small, that kind that Japanese people bring with them for personal use. In fact, it was given to me in Japan at the WIMA Rally 2010, for personal use, but now serves my bike – which, in fact, also is Japanese – that the text on the towel reads Aprilia has little to do with this. My bike’s towel is used for drying rain from the seat and mirrors, or cleaning off bird droppings or spreading the tools on when occasional work is being done.
Well this is all for today. If you by chance stumble on this blog post and have no interest in motorbikes – be aware, continuing reading might change your opinion and I take no responsibility for this whatsoever!
So long and thanks for visiting!
