This article is classified "Real"
The towel, it has been said, is all the hitchhiker truly needs. This is completely false; a hitchhiker, by definition, also must possess the biological, mechanical, or electromagnetic equivalent of a thumb. This myth firmly disproven, we now go on to present other items that are particularly useful when travelling on a shoestring across the thin crust of air, dirt, water, and junk clinging to the surface of the planet Earth. The Pillowcase: Sleep is required by most of Earth's natives and visitors, and surveys show the vast majority of these like to have at least a slight inkling of where anything their head and face stays in prolonged contact with during a subconscious state has been. Possessing your own pillowcase will allow you to wrap it around whatever has been provided for you to place your head upon, and sleep in relative security and peace. If you have firm plans to stay only in accommodations luxurious enough that you need not question the sanitized state of your sleeping arrangements, I congratulate you and ask that you please leave some of the excess money clearly weighing you down so uncomfortably in locker number 147 of whatever train station is nearest to you at the moment. Plastic Bags: Any independent traveller who goes anywhere for any length of time without a good supply of various sized plastic bags might as well have forgotten their towel too. Quite simply, plastic bags weigh nothing, take up no space, and have more uses than even that 68-blade Swiss Army knife that's probably dragging down your shorts as we speak. They hold food, dirty laundry, wet things, and smelly things. They organize your bag or pack and allow things to slip more easily in and out. (They are, in some mystical sense, the KY-Jelly of luggage.) All who you meet on your travels will beg constantly for one of your plastic bags. Do not give in to their snivelling and pathetic pleas! Spit on them as the dirt they are. Spoon: Small, light, and indispensably handy when you really need it, the spoon can be the budget traveller's best friend. In short, along with a can opener, the spoon opens up a whole new section of the grocery store to you and your ever-starved stomach. The spoon protects you from those nasty tongue cuts so many hitchhikers receive from tragic misuse of their pocket-knives. Stop the madness; carry a spoon. The reader may ask, "But can I not purchase these items if and when I find I actually require them?" We at the Guide can assure you that this has been scientifically researched to be impossible approximately 98.76209% of the time. The time you spend at home throwing your own Pillowcase, Plastic Bags, and Spoon into the luggage will be rewarded a millionfold in foreign environments.