“Sammy, you don’t want to do this to your Mom and Dad,” he tells me. It’s true, I don’t. But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it’s fatal not to go through with it (323). This statement made by Sammy after quitting his job, was made towards the end of John Updike’s story “A&P”. Sammy had quit his job, a job that his parents helped him to get. Sammy opened up a whole new world; a world that I don’t think Sammy was ready for. He made a quick and irrational decision, rather if it affected his life or not we would never know. One could make the assumption that yes he was affected, because he possibly brought shame to his parents. With it being a small town word gets around fast a there is a chance that Sammy wouldn’t be able to find a job any other place because of how he had quit he job prior. Sammy labeled the people whom were in the store as “sheep pushing their carts down the aisle” (321), as in how people were expected to act in society, being constrained, unable to be yourself. Sammy was different; he was an adolescent male who was just trying to find his way through life. A life where he wasn’t familiar with, he was socially inept and lacked a good education as you can tell from the language he used. Life was just about to change for Sammy. John Updike’s story teaches us that we don’t always have to have good reasons for the choices we make. Some of the choices we make are strictly based on our feelings and beliefs. Sometimes, young adults can make some drastic decisions without realizing the effects of the decisions they make and how they could affect others. These decisions could have a negative impact on their lives. For example, when Sammy quit his job at the A&P, he didn’t realize that during that time in 1961 people were very judgmental. Those “sheep” (321) that he spoke of, were the same “sheep” (321) that were going to judge his parents by the way he portrayed himself.