The annual great migration is under way. The parking lot at King Kullen at Bridgehampton Commons is crammed to capacity and good luck finding a table at LT Burger in Sag Harbor village. Hope you signed up in advance for your Physique 57 class in the Barn this weekend. Soon there will be women out for the season with their kids, and husbands going back and forth, a bizarre, inside — out reprise of immigrant husbands toiling in Manhattan and sending money back to the old country at the turn of the last century.

It’s never been about humility out here, but the word is that it’s going to be the craziest season in years in the Hamptons. Full timers and retailers are bracing themselves for an influx of the privileged, the entitled and the same old same old, only more so.

Why even more overwrought excess than in years past? For starters, many of the old guard flipped their Hamptons houses last year in advance of the new tax rates (Jerry Della Femina was not the only one, but he spoke about it most publicly). And with the very worst of the recession becoming a distant memory for some, those who made it through mostly unscathed, and those who actually did well, are starting to feel untouchable.  According to brokers, high-end retailers and other service providers I spoke with, there is “a New Arrogance” in town — and that’s quite something, given the baseline arrogance of previous years.  One business owner told me he knew something was afoot because this season, teenagers with credit cards are coming into his exclusive home furnishing store, pointing to his most over the top goods and insisting, “I want this now” without asking the price.

Steve Cohen recently bought a $60 million house on Further Lane, right down the street from the venerable Maidstone Club, the epicenter of East Hampton established social life (he is not a member). This is Cohen’s second Hamptons house on exclusive Further Lane — picked up right after the infamous $155 million Picasso purchase from Steve Wynn. Cohen’s first Further Lane house lost its ocean view when hedge fund manager Jim Chanos built in front of it.

Favorite scene from the opening season of the weekend: a preschooler on a fieldtrip asks the teacher, “Is this drive back to New York City from the zoo faster or slower than the ride to my Hamptons house?”  The teacher responds, “It's faster than the trip to your beach house. Unless you take your helicopter.”