Shopping Cart Series: Cleaning Up L & B Spumoni

Here at L & B Spumoni Gardens (2725 86th Street), I get dragged out in the late hours to carry cleaning supplies. While I’m lugging around buckets and mops, these late night customers come in to grab their Sicilian slices as if it’s their life-saving fix. But there are those one or two pizza snobs I hear saying things like, “This pizza sauce tastes like Prego from the bottle.”

But those people who eat the orange sherbet vanilla swirl ice cream cones and spumoni just seem to go on and on. “Mmmm, yummy.” Lick, lick, lick. “This cone is delicious.” Slather, slather, slather. “Tastes just like a Creamsicle.” Slurp, slurp, slurp.  I have to just sit there and listen to this junk all the time. Someone licks a little too hard, the cone drops to the floor. Porters roll me out with the mop and pail to clean that gunk up. People, it’s a soft-serve cone. Take it easy, will you?

L & B doesn’t feed this workhorse shopping cart even the pizza crust crumbs. I so wish I could be back at Babies-R-Us over at 8973 Bay Parkway, where those ‘preggo’ customers know what’s important in life and handle me like a baby. They love to drape me with a delicate, cotton, newborn layette — just the way a cutie, plastic shopping cart ought to be treated.

They use a code name for me in  these Bensonhurst concrete “gardens” — so, just ask for Lil’ L & B. That’s ‘L’ for lavender and ‘B’ for baby. Just don’t tell them that you’re here to rescue me, or they might not bring me out of the slop room.