"....but, is it CORRECT?" she said...

[Alan H]

Mrs tree tosser and I were standing outside the concert hall on Sunday. We'd gotten there ridiculously early, as we really wanted good seats for this particular show. I wore my Capercaillie kilt and looked presentable, if not particularly dressy. You know, a clean shirt with buttons down the front, actual wool kilt sox, shoes with a hard sole, a nice belt and Scottish buckle, day sporran.... "Casual Daywear" hear me gag at the word "daywear" but you get the idea....

Another, older lady was there with some friends. she struck up a conversation about my kilt, wanted to know about the tartan and so on. As to be expected, she was nonplussed by the idea of a kilt existing in a tartan that wasn't associated with a clan, so we had that discussion. Everything was going swimmingly until she asked me the question.

.....which most of you could guess, would get a reaction out of me......

Was I wearing the kilt "correctly"? ..was the outfit I had on, "correct"?

I asked her what she meant, letting her know ahead of time that I HATE the whole idea of how a kilt must be worn "correctly". I asked her....."Do you mean to ask, that if I were to walk around town, somewhere in Scotland, would people gawk because I was doing something wrong?" The answer to that is no, probably not.

No, she said that wasn't it.... So I asked her if she meant to inquire if my kilt pin was in exactly the proper place, in relation to the tartan pattern and the edges of the kilt...not to mention perhaps the height or lack thereof, of my sporran, and or belt and or flashes, according to tradition? Well...maybe. So then I asked her..."which tradition? The traditions for wearing the kilt after Proscription was lifted in the late 1800's, or the "tradition" of how people wore the kilt around my grandfathers time, say in the 1940's?" She was taken aback by the thought that things might have changed in the kilting world during that time.....so, No, that wasn't it.

She actually couldn't quite articulate WHAT it was she was asking. So I told her that the reason that I hated the use of the word "correct" when it came to kilts was that while there were ways to wear a kilt that looked great, and there were ways to wear a kilt that looked awful, that there were people in the world who equated knowledge of the exact location where one MUST put ones kilt pin with respect for Our Ancient ForeFathers Who Fought for Our Liberty...and that wearing a pin half an inch out of place was akin to religious sacrilege. I mentioned the notion that when I was sort of dressed up for a Sunday matinee, I wore the kilt one way....if I was going to the Symphony Opening Night, I'd wear it another way, and if I were throwing rocks, trees and hammers at the Highland Games, I'd wear the kilt another way, and probably sweat all over it and get it filthy.

All well and good. We headed off into conversation about rocks and trees and hammers for a few moments.

I had to laugh, though, when...just after the door to the concert hall opened, she thanked me at great length for explaining to her the CORRECT way to wear a kilt.

sighing ....what's a kilted Lebowski to do?