ut counter, he is distracted ten fold more than before. “Now her hands are empty…and I wonder where the money’s coming from. Still with that prim look she lifts a folded dollar bill out of the hollow center of her nubbled pink top. The jar went heavy in my hand” (Kennedy 15). All through this story, Sammy follows these girls, pondering over their persons and personalities, when, all the while, he is supposed to be concentrating on his job. He is standing behind a cash register in the A&P, a grocery store. He is not there to gawk at people walking through; he is there to make sure that the customers coming through are served to the best of his ability. However, the second that something appealing walks through the door, Sammy forgets his responsibilities and begins to retreat into the sensual. When the girls first walk in, he is supposed to be checking out a customer, but is distracted by a “sweet, broad, soft-looking can”(Kennedy 13). As a result, he rings up a box of HiHo Crackers twice, and the “witch” who brought the crackers up the aisle begins to argue and yell at Sammy. Instead of simply admitting his small mistake, he insults the woman, inferring that “it made her day to trip me up. She’d been watching cash registers for 50 years and probably never seen a mistake before”(Kennedy 13). All the while that Sammy was watching and thinking about the girls, he could have been doing something productive. Instead, he waits until the girls come to check out to do anything having to do with the store again. When the girls walk up to his register, Sammy is definitely still distracted. He fumbles around with the one jar of “Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream”(Kennedy 15) and the dollar bill that Queenie hands him. Unfortunately, Mr. Lengel, the Manager, walks in at the same time that the girls are checking out. He walks over and announ...
