Auto expiring message on command line

expiring_message.rb

def expiring_message(msg, time)
  message = Thread.new {
    time.downto(0) do |t| 
      # You can use some code to get terminal width here instead of the 15 spaces I use
      # however that usually isn't terribly portable.
      printf "#{msg}#{' ' * 15}\r", t 
      sleep 1
    end
    puts
  }
  interupt = Thread.new {
    message.exit if gets
  }
  interupt.join
  message.exit
end

usage.rb

begin
  SomeWebService.get_data # fails when network or server is down
rescue Exception => e
  expiring_message "#{e.message}. Retrying in %d seconds. Press ENTER to retry immediately.", 60
  retry
end