Overhearing People

**The Kilted Reverend** · 1st October 08, 10:48 AM

Last thursday I was on vacation from work and decided to wear my kilt to my night class. After arriving before class started I went to the restroom only to gather up a group of onlookers upon my return. As I set in my desk I heard the laughs outside the door. I ignored them!

During a break I am talking to my teacher and she says she has never seen a kilt in person before. She then tells me that her family is Scots-Irish and that her son has his clan crest tattooed on his chest.

That conversation made up for the laughs of the ignorant.

TKR

**Jack Daw** · 30th September 08, 03:21 AM

I was buying ice at a convenience store in Salado, a small town in central TX, when some adult asked another why the man at the counter was wearing a kilt. I had to bite my acerbic tongue as the well-signed, well-bannered Highland games were just next door.

**Frank McGrath** · 30th September 08, 05:58 AM

I have overheard lots of comments from the most vile to the nicest. I just tend to ignore them. The people that have the nerve to say something to my face get the response.

**Kilted Rogue** · 30th September 08, 06:56 AM

While i was taking my son to see my wife for his mid- morning nursing (he is 4 months old) a gentleman called out across the parking lot. Hey is that a Kilt? I said Yes it is, am wearing a black UK mocker, his response was. Wow i have never see one living before. what he meant was he had never see one in the flesh. we both went a way with a smile

I just thought it was funny coming home and seeing this topic right when i logged on to XMTS

**csbdr** · 30th September 08, 12:55 PM

Kids are the best. i remember my first real outing in public. I decided to go "whole-hog" and wear my new UK survival kilt to a party for my son's school. He's 5 1/2 at the time. all the kids and parent's know me, good friends, so really a situation pretty safe for my ego! As soon as I came in, I started to hear "Mommy, why's Cody's Dad wearing a dress?!" Of course, the more brash youngsters came right up and asked me. I actually converted one of the other Dads, who wore a UK to the next event!

**thoth51** · 1st October 08, 02:43 AM

I was at a mall once in my olive AK when I crossed paths with two teenage girls chatting between themselves. I could literally hear the conversation behind me change topic mid-stream:
"...so like I was telling my is that man wearing a skirt?". The conversation stopped for a moment while the girl who was talking caught up with me. She asked if I was wearing a skirt, so I explained to she and her friend what a kilt was and where I got it.
I was glad that she was forthright enough to ask me to the face. In my country the average reaction to my kilt is a hushed whisper and averted eye contact.

**Andrewson** · 1st October 08, 07:05 AM

Like most of you I tend to ignore the remarks I was not supposed to hear (and I've heard quite a few) but sometimes that is hard.

For instance, I was in a local supermarket shopping for vegetables when I overheard a 10 year old girl, standing with her mother alongside me but a few steps away, say to her mother "Why have you stopped picking up the carrots?". "Because I was just admiring the beautiful kilt that man's wearing over there," said her Mum. I could not suppress a smile.

That was a Blue Ramsay day. Last Saturday it was a Loud MacLeod (Bumbee) tartan day and that certainly got me quite a few admiring comments straight to my face. My daughter, though, strongly disapproved (on purely aesthetic grounds, she says) so, instead of walking with me she was deliberately a few steps ahead. Afterwards she said she'd picked up talk of "cross-dressing" from those coming towards me. I heard nothing of this and saw no specially antagonistic reactions either. Now was she deliberately reporting this to discourage me from ever wearing said Loud MacLeod in her presence again? Or is there really something outrageous about that tartan?

**Phogfan86** · 1st October 08, 09:05 AM

I like MacLeod just for that very reason: it has to be noticed.

November 30 is the feast day of St. Andrew, so last year I decided to wear my kilt all day. I was going drop my son (10) off at parochial school, go to 8 a.m. Mass and then head off to work. I was decked out in kilt, sporran, hose & flashes, sgian dubh and a nice, heavy sweater. When I got him to school, my kiddo asked me to come in and show his teacher, and I was happy to.

I didn't really notice anything as we walked through the halls, but when we got to his classroom, there was lots of whispering and stares. His teacher did a great job of seizing the opportunity: she asked the class to take their seats and invited me to talk about my outfit, where it came from, family tartans, etc. The more I talked, the more interested the kids got. Needless to say, the boys were most interested in my sgian dubh.

Since the kids wear uniforms, I was even able to point out to the girls that their skirts were Black Stewart and Royal Stewart Tartan, which they thought was cool.

I live in Kansas, and frankly, I'm surprised at the lack of comments and weird looks I get. Granted, I'm pretty selective about where I go when wearing my male unbifurcated garment, but still...

My oldest son (16) and I went to Target after a recent St. Andrew Society meeting, and he even commented on the lack of stares.

**Geoff Withnell** · 1st October 08, 09:13 AM

I was in Arundel Mills (a large outlet shopping mall near Annapolis) this weekend and overheard an amusing dialog. I heard behind me "Hey look at the weido in the skirt!" followed immediately by a loud whisper "It's a kilt, idiot, and he's wearing a Marine Corps flash on a Spec Ops beret, shut up!"
I was able to catch sight, reflected in a store window, of two teenage boys, who had for some reason found the opposite side of the mall fascinating.

Geoff Withnell

**TheKiltedCoder** · 1st October 08, 09:24 AM

Originally Posted by Geoff Withnell

I was in Arundel Mills (a large outlet shopping mall near Annapolis) this weekend and overheard an amusing dialog. I heard behind me "Hey look at the weido in the skirt!" followed immediately by a loud whisper "It's a kilt, idiot, and he's wearing a Marine Corps flash on a Spec Ops beret, shut up!"
I was able to catch sight, reflected in a store window, of two teenage boys, who had for some reason found the opposite side of the mall fascinating.

Geoff Withnell

Kind of like my wife at work. She was telling some of her co-workers about my preference for being kilted, and that I'm hopefully going to be testing for my black belt in hapkido in a couple of months, and according to her, when she got to the end of the story, there was silence for perhaps 15 seconds.

Then, someone pipes up with, "Oh, so he's trolling for idiots. Got it."

Brian