OyChicago blog

I’d never given much thought to what record I’d want to break in order to end up in the Guinness Book of World Records. Until this morning, that is.

That’s when I came across this little snippet about a 42-year-old Russian woman who gained a spot on the honor roll of bizarre talents and collections for having the world’s strongest… vagina?!

Seriously?!

Apparently so. And it’s not her first time at this rodeo, either: Tatiata Kozhevnikova recently broke her own previous world record by lifting a 14 kg (30.8 lb) glass ball with her hoo-ha muscles.

Now, I knew that you could hold the record for having made the world’s largest sandwich. I knew you could be measured as the shortest or tallest person alive. Thanks to David Blaine, I knew that there are people out there who are willing to risk their lives trying to see how long they can hold their breath underwater.

Those are, I suppose, normal enough records to try to break. As is the record for the world’s largest flag, which was unveiled on November 25, 2007, at Masada Airfield in Israel, between two other record locations: the Dead Sea (the lowest exposed body of water on Earth) and Masada, where some 960 Jewish zealots committed the largest mass suicide of ancient times by cutting each others' throats during a siege by the Romans in AD 73.

But how do you wake up one morning and decide that you think you just might have the world’s strongest Kegels, and dammit, you want the world to know it?

For that matter, under what circumstances did Jackie Bibby find himself with a live rattlesnake in his mouth – and what could possibly have prompted him to see just how many more he could cram in there at once? Mr. Bibby’s parents must be so proud of their son, who holds the record for Most Live Rattlesnakes Held in the Mouth.

How bored could the students at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University possibly have been in order to decide that they needed to get peers from as many nationalities as possible into a sauna?

I could go on.

I could tell you that Niek Vermeulen of the Netherlands holds the largest collection of airline barf bags – and that he apparently wears a smashingly elegant baseball cap emblazoned with “Barf Bags Wanted” when he leaves his home.

Or that the world’s highest ranking law enforcement camel is named Bert, and that in 2003 he became a Reserve Deputy Sheriff for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in San Dimas.

But frankly, I’m still a bit distracted by Tatiata’s superhuman special lady flower.

I’m still not certain what world record I’d like to hold. Those who have seen my office might nominate me for largest stress ball and plastic dreidel collection. And I went through a phase not long ago where I probably could have won Most Consecutive Meals That Included at Least One Bowl of Cheerios. But I’m not quite ready to submit my application just yet.

What about you, Oy!sters? What records would you want to hold?