GAIL WHITE Bulking up in the pantry: It's a guy thing

What is it about men and bulk foods?
I saw a friend at the grocery store the other day. He was thoughtfully considering a frozen bag of chicken strips when I first saw him. As I was checking out, he pulled his cart up behind me.
"Do you do the grocery shopping at your house, Dave?" I asked him.
"Sometimes," he answered with a smile as he began to unload his full buggy onto the checkout counter.
"I don't like it when Pat does the grocery shopping," I told him. "He always buys 10 of everything."
"Brenda says I buy more than she does," Dave confessed. As he was saying the words, he was placing four bottles of ketchup onto the counter.
I saw the bottles. Dave saw me looking at them.
"Like ketchup," he said, hurriedly trying to explain his bulk purchase. "We go through a lot of ketchup at our house."
I stood staring at Dave's ketchup. It was a revelation to me. This bulk thing wasn't a Pat-ism. It is a male-ism.
Men can't help themselves. They simply can't resist buying in bulk.
The fear of running out
As if trying to justify his ketchup for the sake of all men's bulk habits, Dave continued, "It won't matter that I buy all this ketchup. We will still run out -- because we'll think we have all this ketchup ..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said as I started walking away, still reeling from this bulk revelation.
On the drive home, I thought about what Dave had said: "It won't matter ... We will still run out. ..."
Maybe that's what drives men's bulk impulses -- the fear of running out.
Right now in my cupboard at home, I have six bags of egg noodles. We didn't have any egg noodles a few weeks ago when my husband went to make a casserole dish.
Instead of buying one bag for the casserole and perhaps even a second for reserve, his fear of running out propelled him to buy a bulk amount.
Yes, I believe men absolutely hate to run out.
A friend once told me a story about an argument she had with her husband. Apparently, he went to take a shower and found that they had run out of his favorite soap. She handed him a different brand. He, however, could not get over the fact that they had run out of his favorite soap.
It was irrational and he knew it (and apologized) but he just couldn't control that male gene that causes fear when something runs out.
To each his own
This fear tendency doesn't seem to rear up over everything that a household runs out of. Each man seems to have his particular "fear" item. For some, it is ketchup. For others, soap. In our house, the fear inducer is butter.
My husband and I still laugh over the time he fussed over the last stick of butter being gone.
Of course, that would never happen today. The butter compartment in my refrigerator is stuffed full. There are at least 2 pounds sitting on the shelves by the milk. And there are no fewer than six packs in the freezer.
Which brings me to another revelation I have had about why men buy in bulk -- the words On Sale.
The week butter went on sale at a local grocery store, I knew we would end up with a year's supply.
I have an entire case of macaroni and cheese crammed into one cupboard from the week it was on sale.
I cringe when the store fliers arrive. What will it be this week? Please, not paper towels!
He's on a roll
The last time paper towels went on sale he bought a case, which sat in the corner until I couldn't look at it any longer and stuffed the rolls all over the house.
"This is a house, not a restaurant!" I insisted as I showed him the linen closet in the bathroom full of paper towels that wouldn't fit in the kitchen.
"I got a great price on them," he responded with pride, quoting the price per roll that he had calculated.
And then he said the magical words ...
"At least we won't run out."
gwhite@vindy.com