#################################################################
sub inotifywait {
#################################################################
    my $self = shift;

    ### Forces a flush after every write to this pipe.
    $|++;

    ### Make a list of exclude patterns using contents of skip file.
    my $exclude = join ' --exclude=', '', @{$self->{patterns}};

    ### Put inotifywait command together.
    my $cmd =
        '/usr/local/bin/inotifywait -mrqc '
        . $exclude
        . ' --fromfile='
        . $self->{bdir}
        . '/list -e close_write,delete |';

    $self->debug(qq{$cmd\n});

    $pid = open INOTIFY, $cmd or die $!;

    while (my $output = <INOTIFY>) {
        chomp $output;

        $q->enqueue($output);

        $self->debug(qq{IN inotifywait thread.\n});
        $self->debug("Items in queue: " . scalar $q->pending() . "\n")
+;
    }
}
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I have another method which processes items in the queue and then sleeps 3 seconds. The problem (I'm assuming) is that sometines the inotifywait method won't release the lock on the queue. Debugging output states "IN inotifywait thread." This occasionally leads to a large backup of items in the queue. Is there anything I can do to make this work better?