I love it when that little tone goes off and a gay customer is on the other end of the line. It’s a simple equation: if a homosexual dials a certain toll-free number and I answer the call, they’re going to book. There is an instant rapport which ensures that they will get a rental car from my company, and I will get a sale. Even more fun than that is when I do an interdepartmental transfer and a gay associate picks up. Synergy is an overused word, but there are very rare occasions where it actually exists, and that is one of them.

And so, taking these two bits of information to their natural conclusion, I’ve decided we really need a special department devoted to the needs of gay customers. We already have a Spanish desk and a French desk, and people who primarily speak those two languages account for approximately 2% and 4% of our revenue, respectively. By anyone’s figures, the GLBT community outnumbers both those groups combined. And hey, all of those DINKs. Besides which, I want such a department to exist because I want to work there. Gay people, as a rule, are not the ones who waste half a day — of both their own and other people’s time — calling 20 companies to get rates that vary by as much as 25 whole dollars. I don’t pretend to know why that is so, but it is. I do know, however, that I’m tired of talking to those people.

And also, I couldn’t come up with a reasonable justification that would allow me to talk to nothing but gay British people all day. It was not for lack of trying.