Hello Hoopy Froods,

Do you know where your towel is?  Of course you do... it's Towel Day, a celebration of the life of Douglas Adams, his amazing books/other media, his humor, and, of course, towels. :)

This is what the famed Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has to say on the subject of towels:

"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."

I first learned about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I was 8 or 9... it was one of my first introductions to good Science Fiction humor, and I loved it from the first page, although I have to say that the name of the book didn't really appeal to me until someone recommended it and explained a little.  I thought it would be some dry philosophy, but instead it was just hilarious.  I hope the paragraphs above give you enough of a taste that if you haven't read it already, you will be willing to pick it up.  Truly a classic.  (For more great quotations from Douglas Adams, see THIS page.)

The traditional way to celebrate towel day is, of course, to get yourself a nice towel, and carry it around in case of emergencies... or, you know, in case of anything.

If you are in need of a new towel and you want a good HGTTG-themed one, I saw this on on Amazon:

If you are looking for more fun activities for Towel Day, check out towelday.org.

How are you celebrating on this fine day?