Twilight and Towels

[captainsblog]

Apparently the 11th of this month was Twilight Zone Day. Nobody's particularly sure why; it has nothing to do with Rod Serling's birth or death days (both occurring in or near places of my former residence and confirmed this weekend three years ago when I visited his Interlaken grave)-



- nor anything corresponding to the beginning, end or airdates of any famed episodes the show that I can find. It just is.  But then, these days, I feel the comparison is akin to my mother's response every May or June when I asked why there was a Mother's and Father's Day but not a Children's Day. In these challenging times, I'm sure she'd say,

EVERY day is Twilight Zone Day!

Although I missed the observance, I was reminded of the series earlier this week when someone mentioned the cancellation of a famed local Corn Festival:

Present for your approval, a bitter angry little boy. He sits around all day watching his special television programs, which are so much better than the ones we used to have. Everybody sucks up to him, dances around him, and tries not to make him very angry, because one false move and you will be lucky to be wished into the cornfield.



I took the opportunity to watch both that original episode (paywalled in CBSland) and the Forest Whitaker-era sequel, where Bill Mumy's Anthony is now all growed up with a child of his own (played by Bill's own daughter, quite an actor in her own right). 

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We will bookend this belated observance with Monday's, which will not be Memorial in any traditional sense of picnics and parades. But it does coincide this year with something else to remember:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. 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 heady 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 mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-tohand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you -- daft as a bush, but 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 to be clean enough.

As with the Zonel observance, no particular significance exists for May 25th being Towel Day, in terms of events in the five-book trilogy, any of its adaptations, or Douglas Adams's own life. It also just is. This year's observance will also be primarily virtual, but around here, especially, towels always come in handy for the washing-up after various errands round the yard.

I'm generally suspicious of generally recognised holidays, because of our long and tortured history of winding up with injuries or home/vehicle disasters on them. It was this weekend 26 years ago that we first saw this house and put in the offer on it that led us here for good a few months later; it was also that same Memorial Day when my then evil car (an expensive-to-fix Pontiac I'd named Cruela de Bonneville) blew a flat tire in the middle of our realtor caravan, with noplace open to fix it that year except a Sears that's no longer with us.  (Retail having overcome such things, I am spending part of this Memorial/Towel Day at a local tire joint finally getting my snows off.)  We've also had plumbing overflow, appliances die, cats require trucking to remote emergency veterinary appointments, and E.R.s (but fortunately not O.R.s) are basically on-call waiting to see what we'll break, sprain, pull, strain or stick into ourselves.

That luck seemed to be right on track this weekend.  I tested the National Holiday Hypothesis yesterday when, after getting out of work early and taking a break from mowing the back forty, I stepped in a leaf-covered mud puddle and faceplanted. Amazingly, although face and phone both went down, the only damage was to my left thumb, which seems a little sore this morning but otherwise is okay.

Then, after Eleanor got home,  I saw she had brought home a lottery ticket. This is totally not our speed, and she explained a customer gave it to her as a thank you to the Heroes of the front registers. She hadn't even scratched it because, you know OUR luck. So I did. AND SHE WON!!!!!!

(Five bucks, but still....)

Best of all, right after my mishap, I DID go back and finished the mowing- and good thing, because it rained like a mofo last night and that yard is so swampy the three previous castles are starting to rise back up. I finished the less-muddy job of weedwhacking just now. And best of all, despite my general misfortune with gambling, I can damn guarantee the Mets won't lose today!

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Work was on-and-off okay and annoying, ending more on the latter note, but one odd moment came late in the week: A client asked if he could send me a retainer by PayPal. I don't mind doing it that way, but a paper check is actually easier for me for various reasons. What was surprising was that the guy talked at me like I was from Mars, wanting such a thing. And he's not as young as Parker in this scene from Dead to Me:




I showed that to Emily, and she said, Clearly dude never had to rent an apartment. That's true: one of my law-school era landlords made me close my Ithaca bank account and open one at a branch of the same freaking bank in Buffalo because she didn't want anything other than a "local check."

Or maybe she just knew Rod Serling was buried near there.

Comments

[warriorsavant]

Hadn't thought about Twilight Zone in years, but it was great. Sometimes, when people say about how bland, etc the 50's were, I think about Twilight Zone (also On the Beach, and The Cold Equations).

I also initially thought you were making a parody of a certain orange-skinned 'leader' with that little boy, not quoting an old tv show.

Also, also, "Hitchhikers Guide" was responsible for me, and many other people, carrying around a much-too-large towel while we were low-budget traveling. Never once had to use it to confuse a Bugblatter Beast, or even really needed that much cotton to dry myself off.