Your towels are just fine, your dad is just fine.
The problem was the fridge. Any male worth his salt knows a fridge in a garage holds beer, or it should hold beer.
While he was looking for a thirst quenching beverage, he opened the fridge and while concentrating on the most important and basic human drive, the search for TQBs (thirst quenching ......), he did a little automatic cleanup. It was an automatic gesture brought on by a thousand years of the wife telling him to clean up the work area, so he grabbed the package without thinking, and put it inside the fridge instead of on top of the fridge.
Guys can multitask, and multitask well. They can look for beer and clean up at the same time, so your poor towels fell victim to circumstance, nothing more.
Now the big question? Did pops find the TQB?
-John C.