I had to appear in traffic court yesterday morning to take care of some insurance business (I rear ended a town vehicle a month ago, and just needed to supply proof that my insurance company was paying to fix the dented bumper). Anyhoo... I came kilted. I was going in to work right after court, so I just dressed like I normally do for work.

4-yard box pleated kilt, Mull tartan. Black, short sleeved buttoned shirt. Brown leather belt and sporran. Lovat blue hose and light green flashes (the Mull tartan is green, blue, and black, BTW -- same tartan as I have running on the top of my home page www.albanach.org). And sgian dubh.

I forgot I even had the sgian dubh on me. As I walked into the court house past a sign that said anybody was subject to search, I thought "this ought to be fun." I guess traffic court is pretty low security, because no one ever searched anybody, and I walked right through the metal detector (sgian dubh and all) with no problem.

I waited in line about 20 minutes with fellow violators of speed limits and road safety. No one said anything to me, and no one even gave odd glances that I could see. The man in front of me was very nice and we chatted a bit. The topic of the kilt never came up. The fellow behind me was a real peice of work. He had been caught going 82 in a 55 zone, and was bad mouthing our town for making him come back up from SC to pay his fine. In addition to bad mouthing the town itself, he had several unpleasant comments to make about the hispanics and Asians in line with us. Like I said, a real peice of work. I was just waiting for some ignorant comment about the kilt, but it never came. After about 15 minutes in line behind me, he seemed to notice the kilt for the first time and asked if I played the bagpipes. I told him no I didn't, and he just commented that they sounded nice if played well, but he couldn't stand listening to them played badly.

And that was pretty much it. When it came my turn to go up to speak with the DA, neither he nor the bailiff said anything about my kilt (or sgian dubh, which I was actually worried about). After my business was taken care of, on the elevator ride down, a woman asked me if there was a festival or something special going on today. I told her no, and said that I was headed to work at the Scottish museum down the street.

Maybe the courthouse being in the same town as the Scottish Tartans Museum is why no one raised an eyebrow. But I got the feeling that a good number of people in line were from out of town. I was actually really surprised at how few comments I recieved.

M