Nennen wir es Glücksbringer, bei Reisen oder ähnlichem ist es zumindest dabei. Und bei "douglesken" Anlässen natürlich. Ausserdem, ich zitiere mal den Hitchhikers Guide :
A towel, it says, is about the most massivly useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly is 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 Satraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep unter 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 mind-boggling stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see itm 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 so be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag : non-hich 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 it that any man who can hitch the lenght and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through,and still know where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with
Alles klar?