Agent Q and I were hanging out in the pit of despair my living room when my old friend Rob and his girlfriend Evelyn dropped by. Things were great until Ev turned to me and asked, "Can I borrow some tomato paste?"

Huh? The gears in my brain ground together for a second or two over this non sequitur. "Uhhh, no. I'm sorry... I don't have any."

"You don't have tomato paste?" She stared at me incredulously.

I made a show of checking my pockets. "Nope. No tomato paste. Why? Should I?"

According to both Ev and Agent Q, tomato paste is just one of those staples one has in one's cupboards. Rob and I glanced to each other for moral support as the womenfolk (oh, I'm going to get comments about that one) explained to us that if you see tomato paste on sale, you just pick up a few cans.

"I don't know," I said, unconvinced. "I just buy things when I need them for something specific."

"Yeah," said Rob helpfully.

"I pretty much just buy the stuff when I'm making something like pasta sauce," I explained, "and then I buy only enough to make it."

No, I'm not the smartest shopper out there, but I'm an efficient shopper. I buy only what I need, when I need it. And like ninety percent of the male population out there (I'm obviously picking that number out of the air), I don't spend extra time shopping for something that I didn't know I needed that happens to be on sale.

"Ach. Men," was the gist of their response.