Meanwhile, kind locals helped out the poor drivers by giving them water and food ... at 10 times the regular price, naturally. And since few had packed provisions for a week-long trip, they could either suck it up and pay or starve.

Imaginechina/AP
"Here's a week-old dead possum I found. That'll be $18,000."

Amazingly, there were no reported incidents of road rage during this jam, presumably because everyone was too tired to yell and horn abusers were killed on the first day. And then, 12 days after it started, the great traffic jam of China simply disappeared. Maybe those drivers are still out there somewhere, roaming the world and solving crimes. Or, more likely, they went to work the next day and got the most incredulous looks ever from their bosses.

But what's the longest you've ever hiccuped? Ten minutes? Twenty? Thirty? Iowa farmer Charles Osborne hiccuped for 35 ... million minutes. As in, 68 years. (We probably should have just said that.)

From 1922, when he was only 30 years old, until the ripe old age of 98 in 1990, Osborne suffered from the absolute worst case of hiccups in recorded history. For upward of three Buddy Holly lifetimes, Osborne hiccuped at a rate of 20 times per minute (which actually was an improvement -- they started at 40 per minute), for an estimated total of over 430 million hiccups. The dude was hiccuping when the Berlin Wall was constructed and still hiccuping when it got torn down.

French Walery
He started hiccuping to the Charleston and almost made it to the Macarena.

So, what did the poor bastard do to deserve such a curse? Regular farm work. One day, Osborne was hanging a 350-pound hog for butchering when he slipped and fell. According to Osborne, "I felt nothing, but the doctor said later that I busted a blood vessel the size of a pin in my brain." Unfortunately, that little blood vessel happened to be the one in charge of inhibiting hiccup response. But hey, at least it wasn't the one in charge of inhibiting potent farts or, like, doing heil Hitlers. And yes, friends did try to "cure" him: One time, someone fired a shotgun right behind him. It probably ruined his pants, but not his hiccups streak.

Despite having to do things like eat blended food to avoid choking on a hiccup, Osborne led a mostly normal life. He learned to breathe methodically so as to suppress the noise from his perpetual parade of breath spasms, and he held several jobs in his lifetime.

He even convinced someone to marry him despite the constant interruptions during make-out sessions. However, Osborne never gave up on finding a cure because, in his exact words, "I get so sore jerking all the time."

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We, uh, guess the spasms do make some chores harder.

And then, one day in 1990, the hiccups stopped. Osborne died the next year, but at least he tasted freedom. (Oh, and to every suggestible soul who got hiccups while reading this entry: sorry. We're sure they'll go away soon.)

It would be one thing if this cacophonous kitty purred only once in a while, but according to her somehow still non-deaf or insane owners, Ruth and Mark Adams, she's making noise all the goddamn time -- but especially when someone's on the phone. According to Ruth, this always results in stupefied reactions from the people on the other end when they find out it's a cat making that hellacious racket and not the Germans having another go at this blitzkrieg thing.

Smokey also likes to purr when people are trying to watch a movie, completely drowning out the TV at the most climactic parts. At this point, we're pretty sure this thing is a cyborg sent from the future to prevent the Adams family from ever enjoying anything again. So why do they put up with her? Well, their daughter thinks Smokey's cute, and they've probably made a few bucks showing off that fancy Guinness certificate in TV interviews.

SmokeyThePurringCat.com
The glass in the frame lasted about five seconds.

But even if you get an absolute hardass for your driving test, you have a pretty good shot of making it. After all, nearly every pizza-faced, squeaky-voiced teenager gets their license, often on the first try.

Or at least that's the case in most countries ... but not South Africa. South Africa's maddening approach to driver education is less about teaching people to drive and more about teaching them to suffer. Known as the K53, the South African driving test is so difficult that it set off riots in 2007. It's hardly the worst thing to ever happen to the South African people, but we do think it's gonna make the basis for a pretty kickass sci-fi picture one day.

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"Who Will Pass?"

Exactly how batshit insane is this test? Here are some of the things you get points off for: Did you forget to engage the hand brake every time you stopped? OK, that's reasonable. But did you make a single clicking sound while doing it? Sorry, you have to engage the hand brake silently. Points off. Don't check your mirrors every seven seconds? Points off. Glance at the gearshift while you're driving? Points off. Forget to check that your headlights and taillights are securely attached before you get in? Points off! Forget to check beneath your car for leaks? Points off, you reckless maniac!

And just to make it more interesting, there are myriad ways you can instantly fail the test. For example, if your car rolls backward for even an inch during stopping or starting, that's an insta-fail. Presumably at this point you're ejected from the car, James Bond-style.

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Or the car explodes. No points off for this, surprisingly.

And what's South Africa's reward for this draconian driving exam? Worse drivers. The test is so impossible to pass for most people (fewer than 4 in 10 pass) that they decide they don't need any of that highfalutin nonsense and just drive without a license. Coincidentally, the rate of traffic fatalities is 20 times higher than in the United Kingdom (and five times higher than in the U.S.). So we guess the lesson here is that they should make the test so easy, even stupid 16-year-olds can pass, and maybe they'll actually bother to study for it and learn something.