I've shown up at work in everything from a bathrobe and flipflops (got home late at night from a Mariners game in Seattle and only had about three hours sleep) to mismatched Hawaiian shirt and shorts (which I sometimes blame on my wife and sometimes blame on getting dressed in the dark). The bottom line is nobody is terribly shocked about what I wear.

So the day came a couple of years ago when I got my first kilt. I was wondering about how it would go over but didn't lose sleep over it. The first comment I got was "Striha isn't Scottish, is it?" It's actually Slovakian, but I assured them that one need not be Scottish to wear a kilt. That said, my mom's side of the family has Scottish heritage and comes from a predominantly Scots-settled area of eastern Ontario. My own father about had an aneurysm when he first saw me wearing it. Now he just shakes his head and grins. My mom thinks it's great, as do my wife and kids.

I ended up wearing a kilt to our staff Christmas party that year. Our mayor just loved it! Getting his endorsement in front of a bunch of managers who might not be as wild about the idea rendered their thoughts less relevant.

Some of the guys bug me about it. Some of the guys tell me they wish they had the cajones to wear something like it. The ladies - almost universally - love it. All of which is really irrelevant. I do it because I like to do it and will continue to do it. If somebody doesn't like it, it matters not a whit to me.