Sammy, a 19-year-old cashier in an A&P, has an encounter with women and authority. A&P, by John Updike, is the story of a teenager who not only reminds us of our youth, but also reminds us of the mistakes we had to make as we became adults. Sammy's actions are not what made him mature instantly, but his actions are lessons to learn in order to mature. As three girls walk into an A&P, Sammy, a cashier, is amazed by their beauty and boldness. When he first noticed them, the eye-catching wardrobe they adorned caught his attention. They only wore swimsuits. He begins to examine each of them as if creating a chart of the best. He examines each of them and soon chooses the leader of the group on whom he focuses his attention the most. The physical and sartorial characteristics of “…the queen,” as he calls her, attract all his attention and soon cloud his judgment of the environment around him (18). This is a perfect scenario of teenagers who have not experienced relationships or had many encounters with the opposite sex. His naive youth gave him tunnel vision. While he idolizes the girls in the store, he places them on a pedestal. It makes the mundane purchases that others make seem boring and predictable. Calling the people sheep, he dismisses them as simple peasants who notice the queen and her two-person court, but never make a scene about them (19). The attitude he implies about them is that they are not worthy of meeting these royalty, or worse, that they question their attire. He builds this fantasy in his mind that these girls are something to admire by being so bold to show and flaunt their beauty in a simple grocery store. He belittles the attention his colleagues show as if the middle of paper... the girls he admired or society. His inexperience on how to resolve or act during confrontations caused him to react in a way that was not rational. Even though he sees that his actions have no effect, we can only see that it is a learning process that every adolescent must follow on the path to maturity.Works CitedDessner, Lawrence Jay. "Irony and innocence in John Updike's 'A & P'." Studies in Short Fiction 25.3 (Summer 1988): 315-317. Rep. in Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Flight. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Information Resource Center. Internet. February 19, 2014. Peltier, Robert. “An essay on “A & P”.” Short stories for students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Information Resource Center. Internet. February 16, 2014. Updike, John. “A&P” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 7th ed. Ed. XJ Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Boston: Pearson, 2013. 17-21. Print