I got my first kilt as a gift about 15 years ago. It's a poorly made, no-name, light wool, sketchy pleated, royal stewart. Since then, I've only worn in 4-5 times a year, generally for special occasions. When I dress it up with a very nice rabbit fur sporran, kilt hose, flashes, nice kilt belt and good shoes, the poor quality of the kilt itself is pretty much obscured to all put those with a trained eye. But the point is, you pretty much need to dress it up for it to look decent, and it just doesn't work well for casual.

However, whenever I wear it, something good usually happens. I've gotten to meet The Proclaimers (Scottish folk/rock duo) twice, had much longer conversations with "VIPs" at company parties than I would normally have then chance to do, and, when I was single, got a lot more attention from women than I deserved (ok, truth be told, I still get the attention, I just no longer feel then desire to act on it).

I finally made the decision to make being kilted more of my every day life, and bought a tan UK. It arrived last week, and I wore it the next day to an offsite training event for our company. Of course, I immediately became a star. The instructor came over to meet me, remembered my name and had lots of questions about the kilt. There were quite a few people in the class from out of town and they all wanted to meet and talk. It's a lock they will remember me and if I need something from them down the road, I'll have the juice to ask for it.

When I dropped my son off at school that morning, one of the teachers saw me and apparently spread the word. I got a call a few days later asking if I could come in to read to his class next week and, "by the way, could you wear the kilt? The kids would love it."

I'm sure there are those out there who think I look like a jack-***, but they've never spoken up. All in all, when I wear a kilt, I know it's going to be a good day.