Today I got really annoyed

[Derek]

As I walked through the churchyard today I passed a retired gentlemen who I have seen several times at a distance but never to speak to. He said to me with fire in his tongue 'Why are you always wearing that silly thing. Whenever I see you, you have the thing on'. I saw red I'm afraid and replied 'To annoy people like you and your stupid mentality .. have a nice day'. Thats a first for me replying that way, but I felt I had to. The guy has got some serious deep rooted problems I think. Now that I've calmed down and poured a cold beer, I'm feeling a bit guilty in speaking to him like that.
Derek

[toadinakilt]

Yeah...blowing up never helps. Unfortunately...

Sometimes, though, you need to fight fire with fire. Silly thing indeed...

[Bob C]

Do NOT feel guilty. The guy had that much, and more, coming to him.

[jjoseph]

People can focus their discontent on the oddest things.

I had a similar experience after mass one day, although not for kilting.... I was wearing slacks and a T-shirt and this older gent decides to complain to me that I was being insulting to God. Having no idea what he was on about, I asked him what he meant and he went off on how "young people" (in this case nearly 40, LOL) should be wearing ties and button downs. You should have heard this guy go on and on as if I had just violated his daughter..
But it was sOOOO worth it....

The delicious part was seeing my usually so diginified rector, standing in his robes behind this guy, wildly waving his arms, hopping up and down and making the gestures for "oh geez, please just ignore him, he's addled". Seeing that, and being unsure if the old fella's cheese might have just slid a bit too far off the cracker, had me somewhere between seeing red and bursting into hysterical laughter....

Sounds like you ran into a similar unhappy soul. Glad you gave him something to think about. It might get through. You never know.

[bubba]

I might have told him we all insult God by wearing clothes at all since He created us without any.

[flyv65]

It's always easy for me to think of a wity, semi-polite reply after a situation such as this occurs, but rarely during one. How about "I wear it because it pleases me to do so; its a pity you have nothing to be pleased about"...or, "I wear it because I find pants to be ridiculous. How can you stand them"? I do understand your regret at responding in the fashion you did-I try very hard to hold my tongue on occaission, but I do *slip* every now and again with similar regrets.

Bryan...don't beat yourself up over it...

[GMan]

Derek,

You never know what people are going to say, and you can usually tell by the tone of their voice that they may want to put you down for being different. You handled it better than I would have done.

[Rigged]

A fine response under the circumstances.

[Richland]

We, as kilted gents are targets of constant pro, and con reactions. Unfortunately we spend too much time defending the reasons, or keeping young womens hands off our hems.(unwelcome, only sometimes) I am not blessed with the ability to think of all these great retorts when the situation arises. Unfortunately I typically, react with the same, or more attitude as is sent my way. So your reply was I believe appropriate "in kind" to the initial question asked by the grumpy old man. I am going to put together a database of ALL the various reactions, Questions, and inquiries from the trousered outsiders. I will match them up with ALL the retorts, replies, and reactions you all have provided to me, and others as a result of your past experiences, and wit. I will reherse a few of the more common issues in preperation for the innevitable. I will get it linked from this site for all to use as they see fit. All I need now is someone to show me how to do it, give me time off work to complete it, and it will get done LOL...
Does this document exist?
All the best, Richland.

[Jerry]

We, as kilted gents are targets of constant pro, and con reactions. Unfortunately we spend too much time defending the reasons, or keeping young womens hands off our hems.(unwelcome, only sometimes) I am not blessed with the ability to think of all these great retorts when the situation arises. Unfortunately I typically, react with the same, or more attitude as is sent my way. So your reply was I believe appropriate "in kind" to the initial question asked by the grumpy old man. I am going to put together a database of ALL the various reactions, Questions, and inquiries from the trousered outsiders. I will match them up with ALL the retorts, replies, and reactions you all have provided to me, and others as a result of your past experiences, and wit. I will reherse a few of the more common issues in preperation for the innevitable. I will get it linked from this site for all to use as they see fit. All I need now is someone to show me how to do it, give me time off work to complete it, and it will get done LOL...
Does this document exist?
All the best, Richland.

I think the UK website has something similar, but they pertain mostly to Utilikilts.