"Sammy's So-Called Life"
             In John Updike's short story "A&P", we meet a young man named Sammy. Sammy is the
             typical teenage boy. He is stuck in a mundane job at the grocery store with no future plans. He
             lives in an imaginary world, only dreaming about the things that he wants to do. But by the end
             of the story, he has learned an important lesson about life. One theme of this story is that we have
             to live with the consequences of what we do.
             At the beginning of the story, we find young Sammy behind the cash register at the A&P.
             He is ringing up an old lady when he sees three girls in the store wearing nothing but their bathing
             suits. In the line "I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I
             rang it up or not." (pg.14), we can tell that Sammy is much more interested in watching the young
             ladies than to take care of his customer. He also refers to the girl's rear-ends as "cans", making
             him sound like an immature young man. As soon as Sammy is done with his "witch" of a
             customer, he directs all of his attention to the three young ladies.
             Sammy is very good with visual details. When he starts to describe the girls, "There was
             this chunky one, with the two-piece-- it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp
             and her belly was still pretty pale....." (pgs.14-15), he goes into great detail about what they are
             wearing, what color, and how each of their bodies are shaped. Sammy is spending a lot of time
             ogling at these girls. Probably what any teenage boy would do when put into this situation. But
             Sammy is very unaware of girls, "You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really
             think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?)" (pg.15), especially about
             the way they think. This...