Yeah the towel isnt actually suppossed to give you anything lol. That was a forgotten mechanic from before the failsafe box. The game saves every 30 seconds and can be reloaded easily in the case of a stuck box. I wasnt able to figure out how to fix that once it started happening 2 hours before turn in. I was trying to get it to give you a new box if the box got stuck but it just flat refused to do it. Did you get to the plunger/recycler mini-games?