The Kilt:
I have always been a bit of a strange person, as my brothers will be quick to attest to. I’ve always been different even from my family, which is a strange one in its own league, but it’s the good kind of strange, that inexplicable feeling of being different that everyone seems to be trying to get a piece of and uses all sorts of counterfeit methods to try and imitate it.
As it was, when I was in the early portion of my high school years, I was involved in a bit of medieval reenactment and was still in the process of choosing my persona that I wanted to be. I thought about what I enjoyed about medieval history and thought about where my family had come from. I thought to the origins of my mom’s maiden name of McBride and just like that it was decided: I was a Scotsman! So I rummaged around in our prop closet from the accumulated costumes from various and sundry plays and musicals that Mom had been a part of. Due to her extensive participation in such activities, I had quite a selection to sort through. Finally I emerged triumphant with a baggy white shirt, a fur mantle, and a blue kilt made out of polyester. Now the materials that composed the kilt are important to note, and I’ll explain why a little later on…
So thus it was, my friend Ben Seare and I set out to explore his grandfather’s field. It was a nice little patch of land with some peaceful trees that had a tendency to hide away the rest of the world and gave the approved effect of transporting us back into a quasi-medieval setting, so we set up camp and began our romp through the dark ages. Things went great for the first couple of days, lots of sword fighting and apple-beer drinking and other such manly medieval activities, although I can’t imagine how girls wear skirts, that kilt was terribly drafty and uncomfortable, not to mention awkward to sit around a campfire in. No wonder you have to cross your legs the way you do… but I digress.
It was on the third day that we ventured back into town to restock our rapidly diminishing supply of cheese, potato rolls, and apple-beer. Upon arriving at the grocery store, we made our purchases (still dressed in our garb, of course) and as we left the market I asked Ben if we really wanted to go back out to the campsite or if we would rather just head back to his grandparent’s house and be able to sleep in beds rather than on the rocky ground for the last night of our trip. He agreed that it would be better to just call off the last night of camping and go home, but we had left his dog Jerry up at the site so we had to return to get that blasted dog. Once there we just decided that it wasn’t worth it to pack up that night and since we had already purchased supplies for the last night, we might as well tough it out, so Ben built a fire and I got dinner ready.
After the fire was going, Ben went off to gather a bit more wood while I stood by the fire and just contemplated with all the depth a teenage boy can muster… which is about the depth of a puddle, but I fancied myself different. As I sat there looking into the fire, a strong gust of wind came up and blew the smoke into my face. I coughed and sputtered and looked away as my eyes began to water. I looked back at the fire and wiped my eyes a bit from the wood smoke and as I did so I saw a little tongue of flame caught my attention from the bottom of my vision, one that was entirely too close to be a part of the fire… I looked down and gave a yelp of surprise. This is where it is important to note the main difference between my kilt, and that of an authentic Scotsman’s kilt, an authentic kilt would have been constructed from wool, not polyester. The former material, though less comfortable, would be far more durable, warmer, and most importantly in this circumstance: fire resistant. As I looked down at the base of my kilt, a knot of flames leapt up to greet me. I instantly jumped back away from the fire and started running around yelling. Ben walked over rather confused at my actions, until he saw my flaming kilt and then he too joined in the yelling. I looked at him with panic in my eyes.
“What do I do!?” I yelled.
“Stop, drop, and roll!” Came the response. So I obediently dropped to the ground and subsequently my yells grew louder as I tried to smother the fire with my legs, with very little effect. I jumped back up and looked at my friend, who was assuredly terrified thinking that he was going to watch his buddy burn to a cinder in front of him. Not willing to give up just yet, I reached down to my belt buckle to undo the kilt and take it off of me. Unfortunately, the fire had heated the buckle and so it, too was impossible to touch, but this didn’t stop me until after sever unsuccessful attempts and even more curses and burnt fingers. Finally in a last moment of despair, I reached down and grabbed the almost completely melted and burned remnants of my kilt and wrenched it off of me belt and all. Ben grabbed it from me and took off running into the wilderness to smother the fire, screaming all the way there.
So there I stood, I had been wearing a pair of cheap nylon gym shorts underneath my kilt to help with the awkward sitting positions. Those shorts had melted into my skin and were hanging at strange angles, the crisped and melted edges giving off a faint smell of burning ozone. Ben came running back after extinguishing the fire and declared that we were leaving. I grunted my agreement; we got the dog and jumped in the car, as blisters were already starting to form on my leg.
Once back at his grandparent’s house, his grandma took one smell of us and ordered us to different bathrooms to shower due to our acrid smoke odor that accompanied us. I got the master bath, complete with a small, standing shower that was roughly the size of a coffin. I pulled as much of the melted plastic shorts out of my skin as I could without passing out and dragged myself into the shower. I turned on the lukewarm water and watched as it began to spray out, at which time pain exploded throughout my body as the tepid water made contact with the various burns all over my body. Screaming I pounded against the walls, lost in a sense of vertigo from the pain, until finally I managed to stagger out of the shower itself. After regaining a bit of my senses I heard a faint knocking at the door as Ben’s scared voice came from the other side:
“Dude, are you okay?” He asked. I managed to mutter something that was evidently satisfactory and he walked off again. After regaining some of my composure I somehow managed to struggle through a cold shower and emerged some time later. By this time a huge blister about the size of a small ping-pong ball had formed on my left inner thigh and so I was firmly against wearing pants, and therefore spent the remainder of the weekend waddling around my friend’s grandparent’s house in my boxers due to the pain.
It turns out that the large blister was a sign of a second-degree burn and that I had also received a third-degree on my right upper-thigh that was from where the nylon had fused with my skin. My friend’s grandparents decided to call my parents to have them come and get me. As I sat there miserably staring at a TV I heard my mom snickering as she came down the stairs to get me. As she spotted me, her snickers turned into a full out laugh and between bursts of mirth she managed to gasp out:
