Towel - Just about the most massively useful thing any interstellar Hitchhiker can carry. 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 beady 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 miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward of noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (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); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
However, using it to rob a store? Not a good idea
Brubaker approached a Ladd employee June 6, 2008, with a towel over his hand, threatening to kill the clerk’s wife, who Brubaker claimed was being held hostage at her home. The employee called a co-worker for help. That man pulled a pistol on Brubaker, asking: “What is it again that you wanted?” Brubaker fled, Knoll said.
Brubaker approached a Ladd employee June 6, 2008, with a towel over his hand, threatening to kill the clerk’s wife, who Brubaker claimed was being held hostage at her home. The employee called a co-worker for help. That man pulled a pistol on Brubaker, asking: “What is it again that you wanted?”
Brubaker fled, Knoll said.