Holy smoke!

The week following tax season is kind of like the week after a hurricane here at Thrivent Financial. You get blown around violently for a while, and then suddenly everything is eerily still. Everybody should have their taxes done by now and if they don't... it's not like we weren't available. I think a collective sigh of relief was let out by all of us here in the call center. I know I spent Friday basking in the afterglow of being done with a frazzeling few months.

I have a couple of questions about the new pope, Benedict XVI. It has nothing to do with the obvious questions: Does he hate gays? Will he attempt to unify with other religions and sects? Is there any truth to the accusation that he was a Nazi? My question is this: Doesn't anybody in Italy work? The pope gets elected and there's like 100,000 people there who've been waiting all day... for like three days. Go to work, hippies! Also, the powers that be at the church decided that "to avoid any confusion" they would ring the bells along with the white smoke to signify that there was a new pope. Great idea, except for one thing: They ring the bell every fifteen friggin' minutes already. So the first afternoon they let out the black smoke, signifying no new pope, so everybody leaves. Then five minutes later at quarter after, the bells start ringing and everyone comes flooding back. They of course find out that it was, indeed, black smoke. Way to clear up the confusion. Next time, just have someone make a noise like a dying giraffe when a new pope is elected. Just for simplicity's sake. Why can't there just be fireworks? There'd be no confusion with a huge papal fireworks display. I'm not Catholic and I certainly don't claim to be an expert on the pope selection comittee but I'm just thinking fireworks would be awesome. That's all for now.

I'm finished,
Nate