These girls walked calmly and with a certain poise that showed that they were not nervous and felt no embarrassment. Their confidence clearly demonstrates that these three girls had no realization that they had violated a domestic folkway. By violating the custom of this humble town, these girls find their innocence to be stolen by the natives as their entire existence is judged solely on their appearance. Sammy sizes one of them up when he said "She must have felt in the corner of her eye me and over my shoulder Stokesie in the second slot watching, but she didn't tip. Not this queen" (28). On no basis besides her looks, Sammy completely took away the innocence of this girl's persona by inventing one in his mind. .
However, Sammy comes to realize that he was not alone in sizing up the girls when he says, " Mcmahon was patting his mouth and looking after them sizing up their joints. Poor Kids, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn't help it"(28). Not only were these young girls being judged, they were losing some of their sexual innocence as young and old men alike check them out as they paraded themselves throughout the store. Not only were men watching them, but housewives in the A&P can't help looking either.
The people who were startled by these girls were described by Sammy as sheep. I believe he called them sheep because these peoples' innocence was based upon their routines. "The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle- the girls were walking against the usual traffic- were pretty hilarious"(28). The status quo of this small town was disrupted by these girls in many different ways which led the sheep to become frozen from this tremor in their routine. Sammy's town daily consisted of local women and their children running erons, doing chores, going to school, and many other common place routines of the "typical" late fifties suburban life. The girls did not fit into this town's innocent everyday habits and they turn the world upside down for the sheep, even though they were just there for a few minutes.
