Water makes a lot of things slippery:  the road, rocks in the river,
small, wriggling children . . . so why don't wet clothes just slide
right off us?  Even a little bit of moisture makes clothing stick to
our bodies, and not just fabrics like socks or sweaters that get heavy
and soggy and would cling to anything.  If I'm still a little damp
from a shower, it's hard to put on dry underwear.  And putting a wet
bathing suit back on?  Major challenge.  How come?  I want to know
exactly what is going on and not just a loose answer like "surface
tension."

Thank you,
Apteryx

Water is made of the elements hydrogen and oxygen, when the two are
bonded together they make a polar covalent bond (a bond where the
electrons are closer to one side of the compound than the other, so
one side has a slightly positive charge while the other is slightly
negative). This is because  oxygen has a higher Electronegativity
(3.5) so oxygen is slightly negative.  Electronegativity is the
measurement of an elements hold on its electrons. Because water is
non-polar covalent it has a positive and negative side. so thus it
forms weak hydrogen  bonds with sediments on roads and allowing them
to have the same fluidity as water. because of this they have very
little surface tension and the tires of a car will slide. but that is
not so for things such as clothes. clothes form these bonds with your
skin, and as a result its hard to pull wet clothes off

Hi, a1s2d3f4, and thanks for your free answer.  That sounds very
knowledgeable and confident, and it might be answer enough if I fully
understood it.  I know that water is H2O (subscripted 2), and I
remember valences and bonds and so on from high school chemistry, so I
can interpret that part all right.  But your explanation is unclear to
me in at least one respect:

>when the two are bonded together they make a polar covalent bond

>Because water is non-polar covalent

Aren't those two statements contradictory?

Also, I am not sure that you're telling me why clothes stick when you
say that they form the kind of bond that sticks.  It just moves the
question over one notch:  why do they form the kind of bond that
sticks?

But I mustn't ask too much of you since you are responding as a
commenter and not as a researcher.

So I'm still open to an answer that goes all the way.

Thank you,
Apteryx

water is polar-covalent. If you can remember from high school
chemistry,  if the difference between the Electronegativitys of the
two elements involoved is higher than .3 and lower than 1.7 then it is
polar covalent.
this is based off of the site 

electronegativity for O=3.5, H=2.1
(E1-E2= bond dispersion)

3.5-2.1=1.4

http://old.jccc.net/~pdecell/chemistry/bonds.html

we are made up of many polar molecules, (such as water), when two
polar molecules meet, the negetives are attracted to the positive
while the positives are attracted to the negetive sides. this process
works just like a magnet does, the opposites are attracted to
eachother. so the water forms bonds with your skin.


look at the sight I gave you, it explains the atributes of a polat
molecule better then I have.

Thanks for your trouble.