diff --git a/offlineimap/threadutil.py b/offlineimap/threadutil.py
index b516f68..c64734b 100644
--- a/offlineimap/threadutil.py
+++ b/offlineimap/threadutil.py
@@ -101,22 +101,31 @@ def initexitnotify():
     pass
 
 def exitnotifymonitorloop(callback):
-    """Enter an infinite "monitoring" loop.  The argument, callback,
-    defines the function to call when an ExitNotifyThread has terminated.
-    That function is called with a single argument -- the ExitNotifyThread
-    that has terminated.  The monitor will not continue to monitor for
-    other threads until the function returns, so if it intends to perform
-    long calculations, it should start a new thread itself -- but NOT
-    an ExitNotifyThread, or else an infinite loop may result.  Furthermore,
-    the monitor will hold the lock all the while the other thread is waiting.
+    """An infinite "monitoring" loop watching for finished ExitNotifyThread's.
+
+    :param callback: the function to call when a thread terminated. That 
+                     function is called with a single argument -- the 
+                     ExitNotifyThread that has terminated. The monitor will 
+                     not continue to monitor for other threads until
+                     'callback' returns, so if it intends to perform long
+                     calculations, it should start a new thread itself -- but
+                     NOT an ExitNotifyThread, or else an infinite loop 
+                     may result.
+                     Furthermore, the monitor will hold the lock all the 
+                     while the other thread is waiting.
+    :type callback:  a callable function
     """
     global exitthreads
-    while 1:                            # Loop forever.
+    while 1:                            
+        # Loop forever and call 'callback' for each thread that exited
         try:
-            thrd = exitthreads.get(False)
+            # we need a timeout in the get() call, so that ctrl-c can throw
+            # a SIGINT (http://bugs.python.org/issue1360). A timeout with empty
+            # Queue will raise `Empty`.
+            thrd = exitthreads.get(True, 60)
             callback(thrd)
         except Empty:
-            time.sleep(1)
+            pass
 
 def threadexited(thread):
     """Called when a thread exits."""