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STORYTELLERThe Clan Tartan Kilts Can Injure In More Ways Than OneWe sat down at the outside tables at the Irish pub just blocks away from the Scottish Heritage And Ye Olde Tobacco Shoppe from which we had just come. Today we were appreciating our roots and ancestry. Or something along those lines. The pub was also incredibly convenient and offered a nice spread and a fine pint. The six of us sat down at the green plastic outdoor tables in the courtyard behind the pub. Chris and Mike and Ramee and Beth and Stuart and myself. The waitress handed each of us a menu and offered to take our drink orders. I asked for a pint of Guinness, the others ordered something other than Guinness, and the waitress left to get my Guinness and the lesser drinks. I didn't talk much when we first sat down. Something had confused me earlier and I was still muddling through it's consequences. An incident occurred in the Scottish Heritage Shoppe but I wasn't sure I wanted to broach the subject here, with so many people who might have a laugh at me. Not many people know this, but I can be unbelievably shy and my sense of self can, at times, be glass fragile. (Stop it, why are you laughing?!) I sat quietly in the corner trying to figure out my tact while the five chattered away about the upcoming nuptials between Beth and Stuart. This coupling was the reason we had gone to the Scottish Heritage Shoppe in the first place. They had decided that at their wedding ceremony they would have the groomsmen dressed in tuxedo jackets and kilts, which the Shoppe rents. We had been in the Shoppe to get fitted. I call it Braveheart sheik. The waitress returned with our drinks, my Guinness. I took a long pull from the pint and licked the creamy foam from my mustache. The draught did me good. I found courage deep within it's obsidian depths. One more pull and I steeled myself for the question. Gulp. Ahhhh. "So, Mike?" I whispered, nudging Mike, who sat on my right. The others kept talking. Good. They wouldn't hear my question. "Yeah?" he said. Dropping my voice even lower, I said, "When you were getting fitted for the kilt...." I hesitated. Mike nodded, as if doing so would propel me to finish my sentence. "...did you have any troubles getting into it." There, I had said it. "What do you mean by troubles?" he asked. Everyone had stopped talking. They were all looking at me. "Well...," I sipped my Guinness. "I had a hard time getting the kilt on." They begged for me to continue. # # #
Stuart and Mike had already been fitted weeks ago. Only Chris and I had to have measurements made. Ramee was along for the ride. Beth, being the bride-to-be, came along to see what the whole ensemble looked like when someone was actually wearing it. Doris, a worker at the Scottish Heritage And Ye Olde Tobacco Shoppe, was a nice, large-ish woman with fiery red hair and a round Scottish face. (It wasn't until months later we discovered Doris' extremely limited competence—keeping track of papers is not her forte, but that's a story for another time.) She measures Chris and me for jackets and kilts. There's only one fitting room, so we'll have to take turns. Let me pause here and describe the scene: We're not in a proper dressing environ. This isn't your standard formal-wear dressing area. This isn't Macy's or Hecht's or Sears or any of the other places you might've been in while trying on new pants. We're in what appears to be a converted attic. Well, maybe that's not fair. Perhaps it's more of a very small second floor overlooking the streets of Old Town Alexandria below. Regardless, it's a little dodgy. The interior walls don't even reach the ceiling—they're really more like seven-foot partitions than actual walls. Whatever sense of wallness that a divider needs to obtain in order to become a wall, these white-dividers don't have it. They section off two areas of space, but I wouldn't call them walls. Doris finishes measuring, picks out a few items and hands them to Chris and me. We're ready to try on our kilts and jackets. But there's only one dressing room. Chris gives me a look that says, "Dude, you're SO going first." I nod and enter the tiny dressing in the back of the make-shift, second-floor kilt shoppe. I pull at the threadbare curtain. It barely covers the opening. The metal rings slide and scrape across the rod when I try and adjust the clothe to get maximum coverage over the doorway. No one's going to get a sneak peek at me in my boxers today, thankyouverymuch. Pulling on one side leaves a three-inch gap on the other side. And vice versa. Screw it. If I move fast, no one will see a thing. I take off my shoes and pants. I remove the kilt from its hanger. I step into the waist-hole and start to wiggle it up my legs, shimmying my butt back and forth hoping that the rocking motion will help me get through what's going to be a tight squeeze. I can't get it past my knees. I wiggle more violently and lose my balance. BOOM! I slam into the wobbly unwall-wall. I feel it shift under my weight. "Are yeh alright in there, dearie?" I hear Doris ask. I look up at the ceiling and project my voice. "Oh yes. I'm OK. Couldn't be better," I lie. "Be out in a minute." Hrm. Right. OK. This obviously doesn't just slide up like a skirt. Oh, wait a second. Hang on. There's a big leather belt here that keeps the whole friggin' thing fastened. I need to unfasten it before I can pull it up. I step out of the kilt, unfasten the belt section and un-cinch it, making the waist-hole bigger. Dropping the kilt on the floor, I step back into it again and start sliding the kilt up my legs. Past my knees, a small victory. I wiggle some more. Up my thighs, another success. (How's this for horrifying erotica?) I wiggle harder and harder And then.... I reach an impasse. At my ass. I wiggle with all my might, lose my balance and— BOOM! I slam, again, into the wobbly unwall-wall. Again it shifts under my weight. I here some minor giggles out in the common room. A few of them inquire if I'm OK. I ignore them. I can't help but thinking how many times my ass has caused me problems and undo social humiliation. I sigh. Unlike men's pants, which are usually worn around the hips, kilts are worn higher up, around the waist. My ass is blocking the road to my waist. Stupid ass. Shit. What am I gonna do? This kilt's leather belt doesn't seem to want to open any wider, and I can't slide the damned thing past my ass. And I don't even have that big of an ass! What do wide-assed people do? Wear trousers, I guess. I sit and mull this over for a few moments. I know I've already been in this dressing room much longer than seems to be humanly acceptable for a kilt fitting. Girls put on skirts all the time without this much trouble. And that's all this kilt is: a very manly skirt. Then it hits me: girls do this. And what else do girls do? Sometimes they pull a skirt or a dress down over their head. I've seen my wife do it loads of times. Ah ha! I'll try and put this kilt on from the other end! I'm thinking outside the box now, ain't I? Lifting the kilt up over my head, I crawl through the layers of clan tartan and find the hole I need to get through. It's a little narrower than my shoulders, but if I can just angle my arms, head, neck and shoulders in such a way... I can probably make it. I squeeze and angle. I exhale and squeeze. I re-angle and readjust. I back out and re-insert, this time shoving one whole arm through. I bounce off of two unwall-walls and almost fall through the threadbare curtain. I jump up and down, the plywood floor echoes under my kilt-fitting dance. A little more work and both arms and my head through. I push with all my might to get it past my shoulders. Shooomp! I shoot through the hole. I'm now wearing the kilt around my chest. It's rather like wearing an extremely mini mini-skirt. As exciting as this is for other people, I don't think this covers the appropriate unmentionables. I exhale the last of my breath—to the point of collapsing a lung—making my small chest even smaller...I yank down hard on the bottom of the kilt and.... Hallelujah! I'm wearing it! Around my waist! I do a little twirl, a small victory-spin, if you will. The clan tartan flies around my wookie-like legs. It's as happy as I am. At my waist, it's a little loose, so I cinch up the leather belt. I'm looking good. I don the black tuxedo jacket to complete the uniform and prepare myself for the catwalk runway in front of Incompetent Doris and My Good Friends. I fling back the curtain and present myself, strutting about like a lanky Irishman parading himself off as Scotsman. Which is exactly what I am. # # #
"No, Brian," said Mike through fits of laughter, "I didn't have that problem at all." Everyone around the pub's table is crying and gasping for air they're laughing so hard. It's contagious and I find myself laughing too. But I'm not exactly sure what is so funny. Those kilts are really hard to put on. I mean, I know I must've been doing something wrong, but.... "Brian," said Mike, regaining his composure. "You do realize that the leather belts come all the way off, don't you?" I stammered and hesitated. Um, yeah, sure.... "The kilt unravels completely into a rectangle that you can just wrap and unwrap around your waist." I hang my head in shame, giggle slightly, and gulp my Guinness. Everyone else can't stop laughing. Back to Storyteller. |