It's new, it's huge, but is it necessary?

We've got a new grocery store in our neighborhood but that doesn't nearly begin to describe it.

For starters, it's huge, even by current standards where box stores are more or less the norm. It's about a gazillion square feet of everything a modern supermarket should be, and then some. That's probably why I have great ambivalence about the place. It's just too much.

In fairness, I'm probably not the shopper they're trying to attract. My wife and I both enjoy cooking so all those aisles devoted to processed foods, frozen meals and takeaway dinners are wasted on us. Likewise with the $20 a pound cheeses, sushi station and prepared oatmeal bar that boasts eight kinds of oatmeal. That must be for people who find boiling water to be beyond their culinary skills.

On the upside, if I'm looking for some really exotic ingredient, I'll probably give them a look. Likewise for their advertised specials, which is a big deal for folks like us on a fixed income. I really do like the store's basics, but they're going to be a bit harder to find buried among the tiger melons, firecracker sweet corn rolled in chipotle spices, milk bone bar for dogs, Himalayan pink salt, double latte champagne boutards (I made that one up) and brussel sprouts still on the stalk (I didn't make that one up).

Another point of contention with me is that the new store replaces a perfectly good store whose only crime it seems was that it was  a mere half-gazillion square feet of everything a supermarket should be. On top of that, construction around the store has created traffic snarls all summer and a number of perfectly good businesses were forced to relocate so their strip mall could be bulldozed to make way for the new store.

Maybe that's progress. Maybe it's just the natural evolution of American commerce. But it also reflects the nasty side of American consumerism - that more is better, that you need to spend your money on fancy things you don't really need. That is unless you really need expensivecheeses, sushi or eight kinds of oatmeal to make it through your day.