“A towel … is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.”

– Douglas Adams

Sophomore year and I’m chatting up a busty fresh[wo]man at the the women’s college down the road. My first-ever encounter with a sexy nerd girl. (What happens, do they become friendly geeks when they’re less-than-attractive junior and senior high girls, then hold onto the aesthetic and sense of humor after they blossom into attractive young women?)

Anyway, cute-busty-nerd-girl asks me if I know where my towel is at.

Beg pardon?

“You know,” she says, “‘I’m a hoopy frood who always knows where his towel is at.’”

No, I had no idea what she was talking about. She couldn’t believe it. “You’ve never read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?!”

Well, now I have, all of them more than once, both in print and in audio (and some of them on BBC video and that one godawful movie). You can read about author Douglas Adams’s conception of towels here. All very familiar to me now.

So when I see this product on a local blog …

Well, I immediately think “She’s a hoopy frood…” and assume I’m in on the joke.

Nope, apparently it’s not a joke.

Joke or not, I still think Douglas Adams deserves the credit.

(Not because of so-called “intellectual property,” mind you; just because it’s the decent thing to do.)

Forwarded to me by a friend who knows a bit about real estate, a little Austrian Business Cycle Theory, and a lot about computer simulation: