This could be a problem . . .

One of the responsibilities of my job is to answer the infodesk emails. When you click on that little link on the AoD website that says “email us”? Yeah, you get me. (Please use this information for good and not evil, people, I’m begging you) I’ve been here just over a week, and I’ve already gotten the hang of this part of the job: delete the spam; laugh at the crackpots; create a macro that types out “Dude, we aren’t the damn Mormons, find your own stupid relatives” then erases itself and pastes in something polite.

Sounds easy enough, right? Except sometimes I get questions. Not “can you get me the baptismal records from St. Somebody’s,” questions—not “can you change the order of the mass,” questions—not “can you tell the Pope to stop stealing my money” questions—but good questions.

Like the one I got this morning about how a new pope gets elected.

I like to know things. And I don’t just like to know things, I like to know things that other people don’t know and I like to show off about it. So don’t go emailing me about the election of a pope and expect to get an infobot response. I sent this guy a 500 word mini-romp through church history. We covered the development of the election process, what goes on (or is supposed to go on) in the Conclave, a brief biography of Adrian Florensz Dedal, and a priest in Ireland who is running the odds on the various contenders.

In the interest of time and the faint memory of brevity, I left out a discussion of the Avignon Papacy and the Borgia family—somewhere in Ohio, Dr. Knox is disappointed in me, but I didn’t want to overwhelm this poor guy more than I already had. What do you think: was I having too much fun with this? I am the world’s biggest dork?