Most Physically Painful Kilt Experience?

[Mark E.]

#1:
Splitting wood. Ok, it was a quasi renezvous/gathering, and a gnarly tree had been cut two years back. We needed firewood for our camp grills. So.....we took turns splitting-or attempting to split-this F'''''ine pile of lumpy wood. September in the Midwest, hot as Hades, and me in a kilt, the tallest person there, of course, had to try. Well, a front mounted sporran really gets in the way, so I took it off to avoid damaging it. 10 pound hammer, and 3 wedges into a fairly innocent looking hunk, I took a roundhouse swing, and connected with the central wedge. Well, you know how splitting wedges get all mushroomy on top, and the directions that come with the newer ones say to grind this stuff off? Nobody ever reads the directions...or follows them. The piece that broke off hit me very, VERY high, and it was HOT-as in, temperature. Somehow or another, it had become imbeded in my backside, and nowhere important. Lends whole new meaning to Highland Fling.

#1.5:
Very early in the trend of MMA (mixed martial arts), I was nuts enough to accept a challenge at a multi-use martial arts/boxing/yoga/use your imagination facility. Original activity had been longsword sparring with wood weapons, so I was attired in a more modern kilt, shirtless. My opponent was dressed in fencing breeks and tabard/t-shirt, which came off. I had some grappeling experience, was 3" taller and probably 20 pounds heavier than he, so I figured I was safe. One of the cages they stored the mats in was our "battlefield", and at approx 7'x7', seemed big enough for the task. I was wrong about being safe, and it wasn't big enough. I ended up locked up, him behind me, arm around my neck, my forward self fully squashed up against the chainlink. I had removed the kilt pin to prevent tearing the material, so in his efforts to "throw" me, things had become very undone....and he couldn't get me up over his shoulder. Not because he wasn't strong enough...use your imagination. The bruise lasted nearly 2 weeks. Thank goodness cellphone cameras didn't exist yet.