Boy Meets World “A&P”
While beginning the short story A&P, by John Updike, you can autocratically tell it 's a man writing this story with out even know the name of the author. The first paragraph is used to describe a girl and her “can” a.k.a he butt. A&P is a classic teenage boy story, of where a young man see 's a pretty girl and makes a complete doofus of himself and suffers some type of consequence. The consequence either becoming embarrassed or losing a job, or in the best case scenario you get noticed in the best possible way. This short story is very relatable, most guys can relate to this story whether he be 15 or 35 and sometimes more then one occasion. Im sure something like this has even happened to some ladies.
In the story a young man Sammy, a nineteen-year-old boy, is working at the checkout line at an A&P in a small New England town. Three young girls come in to the store only in their bathing suits, like a typical guy he can 't help but look at them, he notices the chunky one first he describes her with “...good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it...”. The second girl he describes as being tall and sunburned. The third girl is the girl he really notices, she 's given the name Queenie because she was so obviously the leader of the three and the most attractive, for that reason he wanted her. Its the “want” that makes Sammy make a fool out of himself and gives him that little bit of courage to attempt to impress Queenie. Once the girls have circled through the isles they eventually come to the cash register and with his luck the girls stop at the register next to him, his friend Stokesie 's register. At the end of their check out the store manager, Langel, approaches the girls. He scolds the girls for not being “decently dressed” when in the store. Queenie and Langel have a short argument and then the girls leave. Now coming up is the part that 's relatable to almost everyone. After the argument Sammy speaks out to his manager saying "I quit” hoping that the girls would hear him standing up for them "You didn 't have to embarrass them.". Sammy 's actions where in vain though, the girls had already left. In hopes of impressing the girls, mainly Queenie, he instead embarrasses him and never see 's the girls again.
Now I am positive that everyone at least once in their lives has tried to impress someone and has failed or has even succeeded in doing so. This type of thing has happened to me more then one occasion but I 've never lost a job because of it, In one case things turned out very well for me. In a few bad case scenarios there were multiple times when I would try to be impressive when I used to work for the Milwaukee County Parks more specifically at Cool Waters (one of the many county pools). At the pool obviously there were lots of life guards, more importantly pretty life guards with nice tans and cute smiles. I used to work ing the concession stand and about once a week orders of food would come in usually a few dozen 15lb boxes of fries. I would always volunteer to put the boxes away, this gave me a chance to show off the guns when the life guards walked passed. As usual none of the girls noticed and I ended up throwing out my back at the end of the day. You would think I would have learned my lesson and stop trying to show off but no same thing happened every week for 3 months. Good news is that my arms looked real nice at the end of the summer. A few other times in the concession stand I would make food (burgers, fries, hot dogs) for the pretty life guards when I wasn 't supposed to. I would never get anything in return always a thank you and a smile but that 's all it took, one smile. I knew I was being taken advantage of but I didn 't care, I was a real sucker for that and still am but It 's not all bad. I finally did get some recognition for showing off.
In my senior year of high school we had a spring dance and there was one particular girl that was going that I have been trying get a thing going between us. She was dancing with some of her friends and half way through the night I decided to come up to her. I tried flirting with her and showed of some dance moves. I mad a fool out of myself, anyone could see that was trying hard. At the end of the night I hadn 't made any progress and my friends made cracks at me. The next day one of her friends that she had gone to the dance with contacted me. I didn 't really know who she was, I 've only seen her a few times in the halls but I never paid any real attention to her. Turns out I caught her eye and from that day on we 've become almost inseparable and we have been dating for two years now. I guess me making a goof of myself turned out alright.
Unlike Sammy in A&P trying to show off for someone, showing off paid off for me. In conclusion, I believe the Author made this story very relatable not only to guys but to women too. A&P is a classic story that 's to embarrassing to tell you 're friends or something you 're friends already know and never let you forget it.
Works Cited
Updike, John . A&P. Redpath Press, 1986. Print.
Cited: Updike, John . A&P. Redpath Press, 1986. Print.
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