Thursday, January 24, 2013

Bathroom Monologue: An Ode to the Towel



Hark and grace unto this invention: the towel. Yes, you can dip it in barbecue sauce, or nutrients for later sucking, or hail a spaceship with it, but there are other uses.

Here, humanity has said, “I have this wetness all over me and no biological recourse against it. I would dry it with my hair, only my hair is wet.”

And what was humanity’s answer? To create a rectangle of something else’s hair to get wet for you, with as little effort as a brief application and a tap. Or a scrub, or a rub, or a flossing motion that you really ought not to try when other people are around. It absorbs wetness even better than human hair, and is thus an improvement on evolution, a superior portable toupee that you can wear over your head, or around your genitals, or as a cape, unless your friends are judgmental pricks.

They are cheap, efficient, and do a job evolution utterly failed at despite having shat us out of the ocean by several million years of effort. Some will say the towel is an extended phenotype, a necessary invention of our evolved brains. These people are trying to help evolution reach the towel rack. Even fundamental forces of history and biology want in on the towel.

Here’s to it.

3 comments:

  1. Oh, I couldn't agree with you more. And may I say, what an appropriate post for a Thursday!

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  2. It also provides a clean place to sit in the sand, and can be used as a tablecloth or knapsack in a pinch. I've seen it used in impromptu mating rituals (don't ask).

    Yes, if all our other technology was forcibly removed from us, we'd still have our towels, and we'd thrive. Douglas Adams was right, and so are you.

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  3. Some stuff got invented right the first time, and has stayed the same for centuries. One of those things is the towel.

    ReplyDelete

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