Freaking the mundanes

[MacKee]

Buying beer in Waxahachie...

[Celestien]

Oh my... just thinking about this incident makes me smile everytime.

Last year I wore my faun/satyr(or whatever you want to call it) outfit, and when wearing it I have to first have on my furry pants that have the tail sewed on the back. I wear these so that I don't have too much trouble getting into my small pair of stilt/digigrade legs I made and get those wrapped up in fur as well. So anyways, back to my story...
We are some minutes away from GARF and after quite an eventful morning of my friend's sister getting lost and going all over the place, we finally are on track, but not without having to stop for a bathroom break... at a Wendy's! So me having to go.. do the business, I accompany my friend inside. Haha, and let me tell you that place was packed! Got a couple funny stares with me in my furry pants and corset. I'm surprised no one said anything as I walked out... well maybe except for the group of teens walking out of there, they gave a holler. And what did I do? Shake my little goat tail is what I did! Before jumping right into the car and having a wonderful day at the Faire.

[Capt Gabriela Fullpepper]

Not really freaking the mundanes... but maybe freaking everyone including Rennies

Toki reminded me of an event that transpired last year as we drove down to CoRF. We always do a Faire check as we drive to see if we can see anyone in garb as we pass them on our way. As we drove just around Castle Rock (North of Larkspurshire) we come upon this jeep with no top and no doors on it. Driving along was a rather LARGE man and when I mean large I do not mean tall and muscular but a man with a Beer keg belly. He was wearing a yellow and black tartan kilt and the wind was blowing it up past his legs.This man just so happened to be dressed properly for a good Scotsman i.e. NOTHING under his kilt and yes you could see it as he gave everyone who passed him a nice... or not so nice view as they passed including Toki and myself.

So this year we made the checks and were happy to NOT see a Scotsman with his kilt blowing up his arse in the wind.

[Charity 'The Pirhanna' O'Reilly]

I like it when we are staying at the Motel and I take my kids in the morning to get their breakfast and I am in costume. Everyone just looks at us. Some will speak to us, other will just walk away really fast.

[coleenr]

I haven't found myself in situations when I'm in full garb, but I pretty much wear my tail on a regular basis and people will usually just say, "You have a tail!"  It seems to be the first thing that comes to mind for most people, haha.  They don't really ask why, just point out the obvious, haha.

[Jack Daw at Work]

Not really freaking the mundanes... but maybe freaking everyone including Rennies

Toki reminded me of an event that transpired last year as we drove down to CoRF. We always do a Faire check as we drive to see if we can see anyone in garb as we pass them on our way. As we drove just around Castle Rock (North of Larkspurshire) we come upon this jeep with no top and no doors on it. Driving along was a rather LARGE man and when I mean large I do not mean tall and muscular but a man with a Beer keg belly. He was wearing a yellow and black tartan kilt and the wind was blowing it up past his legs.This man just so happened to be dressed properly for a good Scotsman i.e. NOTHING under his kilt and yes you could see it as he gave everyone who passed him a nice... or not so nice view as they passed including Toki and myself.

So this year we made the checks and were happy to NOT see a Scotsman with his kilt blowing up his arse in the wind.

Black and yellow tartan?  Sounds like the Loud MacLeod!

[Laird Fraser of Lovatt]

I stopped at Luby's, last year, on my way to TRF... (yes, the one in Tomball) walked in adjusting my kilt and fly plaid.  Silence.  Much to the embaressment of my family (none of which was in garb) i had become the center of attention for the whole place.

The old lady working the counter smiled and said "Don't worry, it's really not you... you should've seen the group that just came thru here"   

[Jack Daw at Work]

In 2007 after an outing at TRF, my friends Kevin and Mary, who were dressed as elves with pointy ears, and I in great kilt (as you see in my avatar) went to the Sam Houston Steamboathouse Steakhouse in NW Houston.  No one batted an eye or stared - not the waitstaff nor the patrons.  It was disappointing when you think about it.

[GirlChris]

After the Faery Fest, my boyfriend, a friend of ours and I decided that Arby's would be a tasty treat. We were all dressed in rather dirty worn costumes- the boys were playing unsuccessful thieves, and I was a Brownie. Furthermore, because we are rennies, we all happened to have pirate hats with us (the BF and I had worn pirate hats for karaoke, our friend had run a charity relay in full pirate costume the day before) So we went into Arby's dressed as rather dirty pirates.

We passed by a guy heading in. He stared at us for a moment, then started laughing. "This has never happened to me before."

Also, we made the guy at the cash register so happy that he offered us free drinks.

[Khaalis]

One of our best? We were on route to the Sterling RF but needed to stop and grab some drinks for the road (1.5 hr drive) and some batteries for the cameras. We had one wench, one noble woman, a middle class Englishman and a Scotsman. We ended up stopping at... get this.. a Walmart.  It was definitely one of those "what were we thinking?" moments. You'd have thought the aliens landed.

The 80 year old greeter just stood there with house jaw hanging open and people all around just stopped whatever they were doing and stared. We just went about our business and ignored them, but we starting speaking in accent and got ourselves on a lightly veiled baudy topic about our wench's whip, female toys and other general wenchness, just for fun.

I saw at least one guy get smacked by his wife for staring at our wench, and I had one woman come up and ask "the" question about my kilt, to which I gave my typical "Nice girls don't ask that question and naughty ones find out for themselves". To which she turned 12 shades of red and purple and couldn't run away fast enough. lol

The best part was at the register. The cashier, who was a young black girl that couldn't have been more than 17 or 18 and from the inner city where we live, just stood there looking at us. I had to say "Excuse me lass, might we pay for these here items?" To get a reaction from her. Then, after somewhat gathering her wits, asks "So um, are you going somewhere special?" I responded with "Nay, why do ye ask?"  My friends barely held their rolling laughter until we had paid and started for the door.

Ah... danes. Gotta love 'em.

[Khaalis]

Given that there are so many kilts out there, especially during Faire season, it's pretty amazing just how few people actually know what they are.     (Even here, although the place abounds with pipe bands.)

Just reading through back posts on this and came across this one I wanted to comment on. As an AVID kilt wearer, you'd be Amazed how ignorant people are in general. When kilted, my fiance loves to keep an eye on others' reactions. We find that for the most part, older folk look on it with outright disgust, while the teens tend to look offended or derisive that a guy wears a skirt. Middle-aged folk generally fall into one of three categories:
1) Ignorant "Hey, look at the guy in the skirt".
2) People that know its a kilt, but still give them impression they think you're a freak.
3) Those that don't seem to react one way or the other, or rarely (maybe 5%) will ask something like "Are you in a parade today?"

Now add full blown Ren gear to the kilt...
/sigh

It really is rather surprising at the sheer level of ignorance.

[Aaroncois]

It really is rather surprising at the sheer level of ignorance.

I wouldn't be too hard on people. You're talking about a garment that has been largely out of common fashion for hundreds of years, and was only ever popular in a relatively small (if ultimately influential) region of the world. It also runs contrary to longstanding social mores in America where men wear pants and women (until about 40 years ago) wear skirts/dresses. Since the kilt more closely resembles traditional North American female attire than male attire, people get confused. Wear your kilt proudly, to be sure, but do so knowing and accepting that you're dressing far differently than the commonly accepted norm, and are likely to stand out, raising questions, odd looks and perhaps comments. If that doesn't bother you (as it no doubt wouldn't faze a Scotsman down from the highlands), then have at it. You've successfully "freaked the mundanes." 

[Taffy Saltwater]

I just don't get how people - especially of the female persuasion - don't comprehend the all-encompassing awesomeness that is a man w/a well-turned leg in a kilt.  We had a gentleman in my former office building who came to work every casual Friday in his kilt.  You can bet your last schilling I always had the door open and breakfast waiting for this paragon of masculinity.

[Tammy]

Occasionally I see a kilted man in my town, and I do give a reaction "YES!! A man in a kilt!! Awesome!!" 
My friends usually look at me like I'm crazy, but I'm with Taffy...a man in a kilt is one of the sexiest things I've set my eyes on!!

[Tipsy Gypsy]

On the too-rare occasions that we have the pleasure of encountering a MIK outside of a festival setting, milord and I make a point to compliment him on the quality of workmanship, and the tartan if we recognize it. Then milord will introduce himself and say, "Clan Cameron". Love the instant grin it produces!