Australia wasn't going so great, so they headed off to New Zealand -- a peaceful land of sheep, hobbits, and quirky film characters. Unfortunately, their intended destination, Christchurch, was heavily damaged in an earthquake and the resulting floods. The Svanstroms finally decided to give up on that continent and head to Japan. In February. Of 2011.

William Saito/American Association for the Advancement of Science

We've changed our minds. The Svanstroms surely found a cursed monkey's paw at some point. This has "wish gone ironically wrong" written all over it.

Fast-forward six months, and the American armed forces are in Kuwait beating the Iraqi Army like the first level of Pac-Man. The U.S. Navy and Air Force bombarded the everloving s**t out of the occupied Kuwaiti Island of Qurah, and then sent some Navy SEALs ashore to mop up. Darnit became one of the first POWs of the Gulf War when he ran up to those Navy SEALs (while literally wearing a T-shirt and Bermuda shorts) and said, "Where have you guys been? We've been waiting for you!" in a heavy Chicago accent.

Buster7/Wiki Commons

After checking their GPS a few times to make sure they'd landed in the right place, they sent Darnit to an American prison camp, which is where he ran into a sergeant he knew from Illinois. They had the most awkward "What have you been up to" conversation in history. It's unclear what ultimately happened to Darnit, but this whole "war in the Middle East" thing has gone so smoothly, so we're sure he's fine.

Rolling with the sucker punches, Knaeble figured that if he couldn't fly to America, he'd head to a Mexican border town and take a cab the last few miles to the U.S. But when Knaeble landed in Mexico, la policia arrested him, interrogated him, and deported him -- back to Colombia.

Department of Homeland Security

Even worse, Knaeble lost his job because he was unable to attend a mandatory medical screening. Broke, stateless, and helpless, Knaeble set out to America the old-fashioned way -- which was also the illegal way. As he made his way by bus and on foot through Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and all of Mexico, he was arrested three more times and repeatedly interrogated. Thankfully, he finally made it to America ... where he was then detained by U.S. officials and interrogated again for 10 hours.

Why, if he had a nickel for every interrogation ... the U.S. embassy would've seized those nickels and accused him of nickel smuggling.

An American college student named Young Chun found himself -- surprise! -- saddled with a lot of student debt. So he decided to spend a year in his parents' home country of South Korea, teaching English and saving money. He figured his biggest problem would be that he didn't speak Korean. His biggest problem ended up being Taliban gunfire.

Taliban

Upon arriving in Korea, he discovered he was in fact a Korean citizen, which meant he was eligible for compulsory military service. Panicked, he tried to renounce his Korean citizenship in case his number came up, but this is impossible to do if you're over 18. He then asked for an exemption from the military, but unfortunately, a famous Korean-American pop star had just renounced his Korean citizenship to avoid military service, and we guess you can only do that once.

Chun was left with a few choices: join the Korean Army (where he didn't speak the language), try to swim for freedom, or run to a U.S. military base and ask if they'd take him as a recruit instead. So he went with the latter option and waltzed on over to an American Air Force base to sign up for Team Uncle Sam. But as Private Chun was waiting to board an American military aircraft out of Korea, Korean customs agents pulled him out of line, called "Dibs!" and drafted him into their army on the spot.

U.S. Navy

Chun was assigned to a unit and pushed through basic training, then sent to Afghanistan to work as a translator between Korean and American troops, despite -- again -- the little fact that he couldn't speak Korean. Chun completed the entire mandatory two years and was then discharged. He probably picked up some Korean along the way, though. Sometimes you really, really have to work to find the upside.

Australian man and well-meaning friend Chris V. Parnell made a big mistake in 1985. He invited a friend on a family vacation to Bali, Indonesia. This was a mistake because said friend was named "Doggie," and it is rare that any story that starts with "me and my friend Doggie" ends with "did some fine charity work and went to bed early."

Sebast732 /Wiki Commons

Yes, true to form, Doggie was secretly smuggling large amounts of hashish, and Indonesia's usual punishment for foreign drug smugglers is death by firing squad. Unfortunately, a police officer mixed up whose fingerprints were whose, and Chris was stuck with the charges instead. Doggie was released and immediately hopped on the first flight to somewhere that wasn't Indonesia. "Who would do something like that to a friend?" you wonder. Doggie. Doggie would do something like that. Don't invite Doggie to things.

Mjpresson/Wiki Commons

Chris faked insanity by befriending the cockroaches inhabiting his jail cell, and got moved to a mental hospital. He then attempted to escape by running across the roof, but the roof collapsed under his feet, landing him in the ward for the criminally insane, where crazed killers chained to the walls tried to pull him apart. Thankfully, he was rescued ... and sentenced to life without parole in the infamously brutal Kerobokan Prison.

news.com.au

Chris managed to escape again and got his hands on a passport, but it was a woman's, so he had to cross-dress. He was almost instantly recognized ... by an off-duty Kerobokan prison guard. This would be a hilarious series of unfortunate events, if not for all the horrible torture. Oh yeah -- he was horribly tortured for each escape attempt. Which is particularly rough, since Chris unsuccessfully tried to escape three more times.

Years later, Chris was repeatedly stabbed in his sleep by a gang and declared dead. His body was transported to the morgue, where it lay for six hours before someone realized he was alive. The attack cost Chris his left eye, spleen, and part of a lung. Oh, and the life-saving blood transfusion he got at the hospital infected him with hepatitis A, B, and C ...

And then he suffered a stroke.

Chris Parnell

Eventually, Amnesty International threatened to take Indonesia to the World Court to get Chris released, and it actually worked! After 11 years in prison, Chris went home and lived happily ever after. Kidding! He went home and was diagnosed with liver cancer.

Chris survived the cancer, because like hell was he going through all that just to come home and die. He even wrote a book about the experience.

HarperCollins

Zachary Frey hopes you enjoyed this article, because he wrote it during finals week at Cornell University. You can read his 10 most recent articles here.

Zoroastrianism used to be one of the biggest religions in the world, but their idea of heaven had a slight twist on it: To get there you'd have to cross a bridge, sometimes rickety, sometimes wide and sturdy. If you fell off, you'd go to the House of Lies for eternity. Fun! Not terrifying at all! This month, Jack, Dan, and Michael, along with comedians Casey Jane Ellison and Ramin Nazer discuss their favorite afterlife scenarios from movies, sci-fi, and lesser-known religions. Get your tickets here, and we'll see you on the other side of the bridge!

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