Wal-let-Mart

The Post has a review of the new upscale Wal-Mart in Plano, TX . . . complete with a $557 bottle of wine.

The high-end Wal-Mart claims to have 2,000 grocery items not previously available to its shoppers, most of them organic. That's a lot of different kinds of balsamic vinaigrette. It also has a one-carat $2,984 engagement ring. It sells a $3,477 high-definition plasma TV, and on it they are showing "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," the creepy 1971 version, begging for ruminations on excess. But soon enough we run out of dazzle. Thread counts in the bedding aisle max out at 250. The mind wanders toward something that screams Wal-Mart: a contraption that grills a chicken atop an open beer can, for beery good flavor.

And in the long, long aisle that is the wine department, there are four bottles of La Mondotte 1999 Comtes de Neipperg selling for $557.47 each. They are on a short, kiosk-type wooden shelf near an aisle-long cooler of beer. (The good beers, but also the bad.) On the other side there's a '98 Dom Perignon ($145.37), and several other wines in the $100 to $300 range.

I'm just wondering 'bout the Firearms counter. . .have they replaced the cheap Mossberg pumps with fine Holland and Hollands? The Japanese made (Howa) Weatherby Vanguards with plush Weatherby Mark V (in .300 Weatherby Magnum)? Do they carry Barratt's??