I don't mind the user interaction, in fact I prefer it because it all but forces them to look at the error message. My main cringe is that I took something as clean and tidy as the one line "open or die" and use this kludge just to get the program pause behavior. I'm picking nits I'm sure, but I was hoping there was a way to keep that one line cleanliness (with the post-fix notation), get the pause, and not have to resort to a subroutine call as I do. I'm probably asking to have my cake and eat it too. :-)