Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Towels

Since I'm now a hitchhiker, I have a whole new set of worries. Towels. And, in particular, where I left them.


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 interstellar hitch hiker 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 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 brush, but very 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.

Currently, I am not a man to be reckoned with.

Not only did I forget to bring one, I've managed to loose the one I bought three times. Fortunately, I've recovered it twice.

3 comments:

Lucas Alexander said...

Hehe nice post.
Love your last comment!

Got me thinking of a Mayer song I felt I could connect immensly with when I was on my own in the beautiful country of Australia. Here goes, great song too;



I'm writing you to
catch you up on places I've been
You held this letter
probably got excited, but there's nothing else inside it

didn't have a camera by my side this time hoping I would see the world through both my eyes
maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm in the mood to lose my way with words

Today skies are painted colors of a cowboy's cliché
And strange how clouds that look like mountains in the sky are next to mountains anyway

Didn't have a camera by my side this time
Hoping I would see the world through both my eyes
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm in the mood to lose my way
but let me say

You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes it brought me back to life
You'll be with me next time I go outside
just no more 3x5's

Guess you had to be there
Guess you had to be with me

Today I finally overcame tryin' to fit the world inside a picture frame
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm in the mood to lose my way but let me say

You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes it brought me back to life
You'll be with me next time I go outside
no more 3x5's
just no more 3x5's

Unknown said...

Hi Jophiel

Thought I'd just leave a comment so you can see that I'm following your adventures:)

Sounds like you're having a good time in the wild! I enjoy reading about it very much - it reminds me so much of my own travels in South East Asia some years ago. You describe everything very vividly and with a nice touch of humor:)

Nice to see that you seem to be writing shorter posts now - it makes it a lot easier to comment on the content when it doesn't encompass everything you've experienced in the last couple of days...

Looking forward to resding the story of your bike and why it is no longer among us!

Ida

Jophiel said...

You know you're blogging too little when the comments' length exceed the post length :s

Thanks bro, nice text! That's totally how I feel. Even though people read my blog (and I'm very happy that you do!), there's just no way I can impart the sum total of feelings and experiences I'm going through each minute. Travel is great, and I can only ever relate 10% of it to anyone.

I didn't buy a video of my skydiving today, and in the beginning I thought that was a mistake as I'd have nothing for the blog other than my description. When I went however, it was great not to think about posing for a camera!


Ida: Thanks! Awesome!
You'll be a bit disappointed then, when I get to proper internet acces. I've got heaps of stuff ready for publication! I think I'm gonna do more of these "fillers" however, as it's a good way to make sure there's something up relatively often. The big "travelogues" will still be here though, for the simple reason that I don't have an opportunity to blog every day, and pictures and videos are essential in my opinion!
In my recent (unpublished) posts, I've been trying to make it shorter and only pick out the really outstanding stuff, but it's really hard when everything seems so important to me!

Anyways, wonderful to know that you're enjoying it. Hope climbing is still good!