I Want One Of These

If you watched any of the morning news shows as you were getting ready for work this morning, than chances are you saw the news article about some fool that tried to jump into the Popemobile yesterday.  A German man jumped over the barricade from the second or third row back, and grabbed onto the back of the Popemobile.  Pope Benedict XVI didn't even notice it, and kept on waving to the crowd as the security people wrestled the guy to the ground.  The guy didn't have any weapons, so the Vatican officials don't think he was trying to harm the Pope; they think he just wanted to get into the Popemobile with the Pope.

What fascinated me about this story is not the fact that they had excellent video footage of the guy jumping over the people in front of him and grabbing onto the back of the Popemobile before the security people took him down; I'm fascinated over hearing the news guy on "Good Morning, America" refer to the Pope's car as the Popemobile.  Until then, I thought that only people like us called the little car the Popemobile; I had no idea that the term was universally known.

When I got to work, I asked my co-workers if they'd heard about the incident, and then we got into a discussion about the Popemobile.  A co-worker did a quick search on Wikipedia, and lo and behold, there was a lengthy entry about the Popemobile.  I just had no idea that was what it was officially called.  In case you're wondering, the current Popemobiles used at the Vatican are converted Mercedes-Benz SUVs. Most have bulletproof glass, but the one the Pope was in yesterday was open.