Aprons and napkins

[KiltedKnight]

I usually eat in fear of getting food on a nice kilt. I even once mistook my apron for a napkin and was within a mm of wiping my king crab covered fingers on it. It's even worse when you have a white fur sporran in the drop zone too. Anyway here is my learned solution. Carry a heavy white paper napkin (I sometimes ask for a few spares when I eat in a restaurant that has the good ones) in you sporran. When you are eating anything that could spoil a kilt take out the napkin and cover your lap and unhook you sporran straps and re-install it face down on lap. Cover that with the hopefully cloth napkin that is at your particular establishment and your protected. O'Neille

I have to disagree here, bear with me...

I take my sporran and slide it to my left hip and then put the napkin over my lap. The sporran should never be in your lap while seated for a meal or while dancing, it should always be slid to your left hip. The reason for the left hip is that your dancing partner is always held to your right hip and shoulder and the sporran is out of the way and will never come into contact with her. Of course this is generally for ballroom dancing, (yes, some of us still dance and don't just jump around on the dance floor), where your hip, arm and hand lead your lady. As for the left hip while seated for a meal...? Why change hips?

The effects of a sporran under a napkin are obvious, if you spill something on the napkin, the spill goes to both sides of your napkin with the sporran making a mound under the napkin and soils two areas of your kilt as opposed to running right down the 'valley' made by your lap and the napkin and onto the floor with your sporran moved to your hip.

The napkins in a restaurant serve a double purpose for me. The first thing that I use a napkin for, and generally they're cloth napkins, I reach behind me with the napkin and grab the corners of the napkin and smooth my kilt down as I sit down which keeps the pleats even and distributed underneath me, much more efficient than the 'buttsweep'. This can be accomplished without anyone even noticing or at worst the folks around you will see the reason and never raise an eyebrow.

Chris.