A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it round you for warmth as you bound acroos the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on the brilliant marble sanded beaches of Santrraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrfoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow, heavy, River Moth; use it in hand to hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes, or to avoid thew gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal ( a mind bogglingly stupid creature, it assumes if you cant see it, it can't see you- daft as a brush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies, and of course dry yourself of with it if it still seems clean enough.
   More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag ( strag: non hitchhiker) discovers a hitchhiker has their towel with them,, he will automatically assume he is also in possesion of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit, etc, etc. Furthermore, the starg will then happily lend the hitchhiker 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 know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

HHGH, D. Adams.

Was that what you were afraid of, Peace?