This past Saturday was the annual St Patrick Day parade here in Binghamton, always held a couple of weeks early so that some great pipe bands can be scheduled (the NYPD lads, for example). Well, "Parade Day" has grown to rival St Paddy's Day itself for Irish-oriented festivities and carousing, so we in effect have two St Paddy's Days every year.

One of the fun aspects of Parade Day is to "pub hop" around town, taking in the various Celtic music groups scheduled, and to hopefully encounter the roving gangs of pipers from the parade bands in town - always a big hit at a pub when they show up to play a few tunes.

A perfect opportunity for going out kilted, right? Here's the problem: you enter a pub or bar wearing your kilt and instantly hear a chorus of "Hooray! A bagpiper!!" Then you have to stop an explain that, no, you're not a piper, you just happen to be wearing kilt, blah, blah, blah! It gets old....

So, Saturday I wimped out and went out in trousers.

Do others ever just want to avoid the attention that wearing a kilt can bring on?