Don’t panic! Here’s how to celebrate International Towel Day
Happy Towel Day, Gigglers!
For anyone who’s ever read Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you know that the most important thing an interstellar traveler needs to remember is to always carry a towel. (You also know that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42 — but that’s neither here nor there.)
A towel is a priceless tool in your adventures across the galaxy, and has a ton of potential, practical uses: You can use it for warmth, to wave in emergencies as a distress signal, or to cover your eyes in the presence of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (as the book says, “a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous”). But of course, a towel has incredible value from a purely psychological perspective, as well: If you can travel across the universe and beyond and not lose your towel, you’re probably doing pretty alright in life.
In celebration of this most glorious of holidays and the author it honors, the European Space Agency (ESA) posted a video of astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti reading from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy while suspended in zero gravity earlier today. Cristoforetti is currently on the International Space Station in the European laboratory Columbus as part of a six-month mission — but she was able to make time for one of everyone’s favorite tales. As they say, “There’s a frood who really knows where her towel is.”
It’s a wholly remarkable video for a wholly remarkable book (series), and it’s well worth a watch below. And just in case you want to partake in today’s celebrations, feel free to carry around a towel of your very own — you never know when it might come in handy.
(Image via.)
