Of Kilts

     This weekend was the black tie DRA Ball. As I live in DRA, I attended. The dance itself wasn't that much fun (even though there was free food and ice cream), but we did all wear kilts – all us men, that is.
     Putting on a kilt is strange, pretty much only for that fact that I kind of felt like I was wearing a dress. To put on a kilt, you have to unclasp both aprons – one under and one over – from their buckles, put the pleats to your back and re-clasp it a little above your belly-button. I made the mistake of not putting on my dress shirt first, so, after donning the kilt for a few seconds, I realized that I had to begin again, this time with my dress shirt on. There is no hope of tucking it in once it's all clasped.
     So, once you have the kilt on, there are a number of small things that need to go into it for it to look formal and black tie worthy. After getting on the kilt itself, you slip on above-knee white socks. On those, just below the knees, you place what are called garter flashes. The ones I had essentially consisted of an elastic band fitted with 2 felt rectangles cut in an inverted 'V' at the ends. Once those are on, you fold the socks over themselves so that only the ends of the garter flashes are showing. Then come the shoes. Though they don't look it, they feel a bit like bowling shoes and have incredible long black laces that, once slid through the eyelets of the shoe, come up at your ankle, twist around for a while and then are tied like a normal shoe on your shin.
     After that, you're pretty much ready to go after you've done a few more, even smaller things. You put on the bow tie (unfortunately a clip-on), the vest, and the jacket. Then, the finishing touch is a small knife called a skean dhu that slips into your right sock on the outside of your leg. This was by far the most fun part of the kilt ensemble. Too bad the knives didn't come out of their sheaths... on second thought, it's probably better that it doesn't.
     After all that, we met at our friend TJ's room and were there until bused to where the ball. The ball was held in a converted barn where you can imagine a prom being held. The music was all right, but the live band stopped at about 11.30 and after that it was just techno.
     All in all, it was a pretty good night, although I didn't enjoy having to dissemble the kilt when I got home as I really wanted to go to bed.

Kilts