Did you try watching a game of the World Cup? Did you originally just think soccer was boring, but after five minutes of watching want to murder everyone involved with the game? That’s because of the vuvuzela, perhaps the most awful object in existence. I sent my crack research team to find out all they could about those noisemakers (though I forbade them to blow into one) and here is what they found:

FUN FACTS ABOUT THE VUVUZELA

* The vuvuzela was made in a collaboration of Hitler and Satan. They have sense profusely apologized.

* The vuvuzela was created in South Africa after apartheid ended and the country needed something just as awful to take its place.

* The vuvuzela is the only noisemaker known to cause deaf people watching a sport at home to hit the mute button.

* The vuvuzela really took off in 2001 when Masincedane Sport started mass marketing a plastic version of it, an act that was called “unconscionable” by people who sell tainted crack to schoolchildren.

* The object of vuvuzela blowing during a soccer match is to blow it continuously throughout the game without stopping to express your complete hatred for the world and all living things.

* The sound of the vuvuzela has been described as “a stampede of noisy elephants”, “a deafening swarm of locusts”, “a goat on the way to slaughter”, and “complete contempt for both God and man”.

* If surrounded by people blowing the vuvuzela, you’d think the smart thing to do would be to jab out your eardrums with a pen, but the horrible sound would still be stuck in your brain. Yes, the only escape is sweet, sweet death.

* The sound of the vuvuzela can be mistaken for a mating call by giant mutant bees.

* The vuvuzela causes both hearing loss and the desire for hearing loss.

* Many believe the vuvuzela to be the worst object in existence, even worse than clamshell packaging. In fact, if vuvuzela came in clamshell packaging, thus making it nigh impossible for a purchaser to get one out and blow into it, clamshell packaging would singlehandedly redeem itself.

* In a fight between a vuvuzela and Aquaman, Aquaman would accidentally swim to crush depths and die to escape the annoying sound.

* The only way to stop a vuvuzela is to stop people from blowing in it, and the only way to stop people from blowing in it is to make sure there is no air. Thus the vuvuzela has inspired a campaign to destroy all plant life.

* In response to the outcry, people have said that the vuvuzela is part of South African culture… as apparently so is sociopathy.