Stuff Gay People Like: Gaybles

Angelo lives in the middle of the gayborhood. His gaybors, Anders and Lionel, are a sweet older gay couple who live in the condo next door with their Shi-tzu, Michael. Down the block is the gay grocery store, affectionately nicknamed “Gayfeway,” and a cute little independently-owned lesbian bookstore called the Labiarary.

Whenever Angelo’s mom comes to visit the city, she wrinkles her nose at all the puns.

“Why do you guys like to call everything ‘gay?’” she asks. “Is your coffee table called the coffee ‘gabel’ because you’re gay? Are you drinking ‘homo-genized milk?’ What’s with all the labels?”

“You mean the gaybels,” Angelo corrects her.

(And no, Angelo’s mom, we don’t call it homo-genized milk. Who gives a shit, it’s just milk. Maybe if four or five gay people were sitting around enjoying milk together they’d bother to nickname it, but making a name for milk out of the carton is like deciding your spider plant is Jewish and your cat is a Republican. We only re-name things that are part of communities).

Gay people do love gaybels, it’s true. They love re-naming things and having their own little queer corner in the big world. They love “gay day” at the amusement park and they love their gay sports leagues. Many straight people are irritated or jealous whenever gay people get “their own special thing” such as a gay bar, an LGBT TV channel, or a high school Gay-Straight Alliance. They want to know why gay people go around re-inventing institutions when straight people don’t get those things – they don’t get a heteros-only TV channel or a heteros-only high school club right?

But straight people actually do have their own clubs. How many gay people work at the Christian TV station? We’re sorry if it happens to be a fact of life that taking all the gay people out of a production makes it boring. But if you and your fratboy friends wanna pop up some popcorn on a Friday night and sit around the TV watching Pat Robertson lead his team in prayer, rest assured that the only homoeroticism that interrupts your sausage party will come not from the TV but from the three guys in your group of five who are closeted.

And in high school, a student’s most expensive and overly-hyped social event of the four-year experience is based on celebrating the past and present of heterosexual pairing: it’s called the fucking prom.

There’s your straight-straight alliance.
So in this neighborhood, everything is cutely gay. King Street is re-named Queen Street here, and the apartment complex is Queer Court.

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