Published in 1962, John Updike's story A&P is written in the first person point of view. The story takes place on a "Thursday afternoon, so there was nothing much to do except lean on the register,"" (1546) in a small town north of Boston. The story is told by the main character Sammy, who is nineteen years old and works as a checkout clerk in the local grocery store called A&P; he also work with a manager named Lengel and another clerk named Stokesie. Lengel is described to be someone "who doesn't miss anything,"" (1547) and hides behind a door marked manager all day. Sammy also mentions that "Lengel's pretty dreary, teaches Sunday school, and the rest- (1547). Sammy also tells the reader about Stokesie, the other checkout clerk. Sammy describes him as "married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already, but as far as I can tell that's the only difference. He's twenty-two, and I was nineteen this April- (1546). In the story A&P, you will see how everything is meant to remain the same, with no indication of change; shown through the description of the customers, the town and how the manager treats the girls; you will see how the three girls represent the three employees and how Sammy realizes that he is at a dead end job with no hope of having a future that he can take pride in. .
As the story opens, the narrator tells us of the three girls that walk into the A&P with nothing on but their bathing suits. Sammy is so distracted by their presence that he makes a mistake while he is checking out a customer who's "been watching cash registers for fifty years and probably never seen a mistake before- (1544). After he "got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a bag,"" (1544) he began to eye the girls. He notices that neither one of the girls is wearing shoes. He describes each of the girls in great detail. .
As he describes the girls, he begins with the one which he called "the chunky one,"" wearing her bathing suit.