Tonight was the Robert Burns dinner. The choir gathered at the church a few hours before the event and we ran through all the songs a few times, just to get them fresh in our heads – although I'm not sure at this point whether I'll ever get 'Ye Banks and Braes' *out* of my brain after all the work I have put into that darn song. And then we all piled into cars and drove over to the fairgrounds, where we gathered on chairs at the front corner of the room and waited for everyone to sit down with their food, and for the program announcers to work their way through a series of toasts before we could actually perform.

I will note again, just to make it perfectly clear, that this was a Robert Burns dinner, hosted by the local Scottish guild. So naturally it was attended by a great number of men who were wearing kilts. Men whose mothers apparently never told them that when one is wearing a skirt (or anything resembling a skirt) that one should keep one's knees together.

Our seating arrangement was such that we were facing the rest of the room. This meant that we had a clear view of all the participants. And it was shortly into the toast to the laddies that we all suddenly realized that we were now being blessed with knowledge that heretofore had been kept secret.

Yes, I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's very hard to keep a straight face when you are face to…er…pleats with finding out just what it is that they wear under their kilts. And once the door to such a mystery has been left so…um…wide open, how does any self-respecting choral member avoid taking the inevitable peek?