last night was terrible

[Kid Cossack]

Phil:

There's a learning curve to wearing a kilt, or at least there was for me. I was SO nervous when I first wore my UK original. What would people think? Would they notice? Would they think I was cross-dressing? For the first three or four months (and I was kilted almost the whole time), I had a chip on my shoulder. At the very least, I was ready to put a chip on my shoulder.

The other day I took my daughter to school. It was "meet the teachers" day and so there were kids and parents running around all over the place. I was wearing my SWK weathered Lamont wool, a collarless dress shirt, a 3" oxblood kilt belt from Simply Rugged in Alaska, Thor-Lo black boot socks scrunched down, and brown Doc Marten's shoes. It took me a minute to snap when a little girl asked me why I was dressed funny.

Now, down here in Houston, we've got our share of rednecks, Hispanics, African-Americans, Vietnamese, Pakistanis, what have you. Wearing a kilt pretty much full time for almost two years, I've had THREE NEGATIVE ENCOUNTERS.

Going into the store one day, a guy driving by rolled down his window and called "Hey dude you're wearing your wife's clothes!" at me. I just stopped and asked him if he'd thought of that himself, because it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard. He drove off.

One day at a Pizza Hut where I was grabbing a quick lunch, two guys came in wearing gimme caps, and said something audible about cross dressing. I looked at them and replied that if they didn't have sense enough to take their hats off indoors, they shouldn't be giving fashion advice.

One day at a Home Depot, a huge black guy made a crack about how I was dressed. His girlfriend lit into him. "Dave you oughtta have the legs or the guts or the confidence that this guy has. He looks fine and he's not hurting anyone, so hush up." Funny thing is, I ended up talking to Dave for about fifteen minutes about kilts, and how nice it is to be kilted, and where to look around (I reccomended SWK for a good quick kilt intro, fast service, decent kilt and a nice way to get his feet wet, so to speak).

The people who get their dander up about kilts, in my experience, are small people. They're insecure. I'm not going to say they should wear a kilt----it's not for everyone. But it's right for me. With calm-eyed confidence, I can explain why I wear it. I'm not aggressive, I'm not pushy, but I don't back down. It's THEIR problem, not mine.

I don't listen to much rap, but there's a line I really like from an old NWA song. "It's crazy to see people be what society wants them to be----but not me."

Keep at it, bro, things will get better.