The author describes Earth as “an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea” (5). The author continues to say that the book that will follow is “the story of [a] terrible, stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences,” as well as the story of a “wholly remarkable book,” The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (5).

The book begins as Arthur Dent wakes up, nursing a hangover and wondering why he overindulged at the pub the night before. He feels troubled by something but cannot quite remember what the problem is. He notices a couple of yellow bulldozers outside the window of his ordinary house on the outskirts of an ordinary village in England. When he finally makes the connection—the bulldozers have come to raze his house in order to construct a bypass—he runs out into the yard and sprawls in the mud in front of the bulldozers, trying to save his home.

Mr. L. Prosser, an emissary from the local council, reminds Arthur that he should have known about the plans all along and made the necessary preparations. Arthur retorts that the plans were only available “in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet” in the bathroom of an unlit basement of the local planning office (10).