A Spare Towel Belongs In The Car

A spare towel in the car earns its space in Seattle.

Not a beach towel. A small old hand towel or microfiber towel in the trunk, folded into a zip bag. It handles the jobs that are too wet for napkins and too ordinary for a whole emergency kit:

• drying a playground slide after overnight rain
• wiping stroller wheels before they go back in the car
• saving a seat from a soaked jacket
• wrapping muddy shoes after a short trail
• cleaning up the coffee that found the only bad cupholder angle

The bag matters. Without it, the towel becomes just another damp thing loose in the cargo area. With it, the rule is simple: wet towel goes home, clean towel comes back.

Seattle outings fail in boring ways. A ten-cent towel fixes more of them than it should.