As I type this, there are 49,980 comments attached to the 4,157 posts spread out over the five-plus years of life here at GetReligion. In other words, a milestone is going to fall here in the very near future, maybe by dawn (especially if the Divine Ms. M.Z. Hemingway knocks out a post on media coverage of post-Proposition 8 debates between gay and straight Mormons in the next few hours).

Just checking -- still at 49,980. Things must have have quietened down a bit on the JournoList and "Flash! Vatican opposes birth control" posts.

Anyway, we think that whoever puts up the 50,000th comment deserves a small prize of some kind and we think we know what that should be.

While you can find a decently wide array of GetReligion.org swag over in our corner of the CafePress world, by far the most popular item is one that has chronic blogging written all over it -- which would be the extra-large GetReligion coffee cup.

So whoever rings the bell at 50,000 gets one on us. Even if your name is Michael (and you know what I'm talking about).

The Rt. Rev. Doug LeBlanc and I are watching the WordPress Dashboard page and we think we know how to pick the winner.

Oh, one other thing. Yes, there is a GetReligion teddy bear at the CafePress site. There's a GetReligion beer stein, too, which would be popular with many of our readers (think Lutheran, naturally) but not with others (hello, Southern Baptists who do not live in Louisville).

But we took down one of those items that grace many CafePress sites and, believe you me, we are not apologizing for that.

So. There.

P.S. Just checking and we're at 49,981. The deacon is in the house. And Jerry, twice. Still counting.