LaughingStock, Downers Grove, is a very silly place. Guffaw haven. A place to get cards and gifts of no significance whatsoever.
Aviator glasses with windshield wipers ($10), a laughing mirror ($16), a clock that hurls insults ($33), and a hammer with glass-smashing sound effects ($13.95) are among items patrons purchase here. Why? No one knows.
Owner Mike Beirl says, ”We can`t keep this goofy stuff in stock. I mean our piggy, kitty and cow sweatshirts that come with matching feet-socks are wowing `em. I have to reorder dead arms and dead feet every month.
”Anything that insults is popular,too-devices that yell at you when you open the refrigerator or laugh at you when you look in the mirror or snarl out the time when the alarm goes off.”
The after-school crowd goes for the snap bracelets, bendable pencils, dinosaur eggs, talking teeth and mechanical banks that are in the under-$10 range.
This is a hands-on place. The owners invite you to try out the yuck-stuff.
Some items simply intrigue, such as a desk-top clump of tiny magnets that transform into countless shapes, and a pin-filled frame that conforms to any shape pressed into it.
Many items cater to the over-40-but-still-kicking shoppers. Lava lamps, fuzzy dice, a cardboard cutout of the perfect man and a wide variety of sweatshirts imprinted with stupid phrases are popular. Also available are over-the-hill walking canes, a love meter, and punching puppets gauranteed to provide hours of aggression-release catharsis.
Bumper stickers (”Please tailgate, I need the money”), parking signs
(”Never mind the dog, beware of owner”), and ”Brat on board” signs amuse at $3.50.
Beirl, eager to own his own business, looked a long time before opening the shop last year. He says, ”I wanted a place that would be fun to run. Here, we say, `the customers always riot.` ”
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LaughingStock, 5133 Main Street, Downers Grove, is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays. Call 708-241-3733.
