What Are Sex Cloths?

My friend Nile is a very funny man. And he's a stand up comic.

I first met him in 1998 or 1999 at work, where we were both checking resumes and hating it. Outside of work, we didn't hang out at all. But then I quit to take the summer off before library school. We exchanged phone numbers and personal email addresses, and that moment was the true start of a relationship that has been long, occasionally tumultuous and very rewarding.

The year that we were not friends, I missed him consistently. Not painfully - at least after a while - but like the achy absence of a removed wisdom tooth, the place you can't stop poking with your tongue. We got over that, thankfully. Nowadays, we don't see each other much, we never talk on the phone, and our emails have gotten further apart over the years, but I still count him as one of my good friends. My life would be a poorer place without him.

When we first met, he had just moved to Toronto from Ottawa to make his mark in stand up. Strangely, though, I've only ever seen him do his thing in Ottawa. When I was living in Toronto, he wasn't letting his friends come to the shows.

So after 7 years of knowing him he let me know he was coming to Ottawa to do a show. I was really nervous going to see him perform for the first time. People who are funny in person are not necessarily funny on stage. And we'd been friends for a long time. If he sucked, how was I going to manage that? Needless worry, as it turns out, because he makes me laugh as hard on stage as he does off.

My favourite of his bits is one where he says "Okay, let me ask you this. After sex, is it more romantic to say 'Oooooh, I wuv you' or 'Hold still while I get you a towel'?" The first time I heard this, I nearly snorted beer out my nose. It is perfectly Nile.

All this reminiscing to say: that, Zoom, is what sex cloths are. The wee towels, made out of soft soft sheets, that you use to clean up various slippery post-sex liquids, the proffering of which says "I love you" stronger than words.