Do you remember when you realized that the whole world did not eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and jump off the swing into the sandbox? There is a point in every child's life where the spell of youth is broken and the harsh, devil-may-care views of mature existence are revealed. In the short story "A & P" a boy goes through a coming-of-age of sort, and sees society as it exists from an adult viewpoint.
             Sammy works in a grocery store: The A & P. A grocery store is an establishment of explicit order and organization, a bustling center where everything, even herring snacks, has its own section or aisle. The only chaos that inhabits a grocery store is that one unruly wheel on your shopping cart. As each shopper walks under that electric eye in the door, the chilling produce air and elevator music consumes them and immediately they kick into grocery mode. After grabbing a cart, they join the herd of sheep already shopping in the store. Sammy spends the majority of his days in this fluorescent lit wonderland watching the sheep roll by.
             He describes this next episode as "the sad part of the story, at least my family says it's sad but I don't think it's sad myself." (Updike, 29) He takes up for what he thinks about the situation but still states his family's opinion as the truth. So even after the fact his sense of self is not fully maturated.
             On a fateful summer day while Sammy is in his apron behind the checkout counter near Aisle 3, three pieces of trouble saunter into the store. "Everybody's luck begins to run out." (Updike, 29) These young ladies disrupt the order of the store: they are three unruly cart wheels. Sammy refers to them as "poor kids, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn't help it." (Updike, 28) He puts the girls in a different category than what he considers himself ("Poor kids"), so he does not view hims...