Last week, I made one of the more spectacular errors of my career, partly because the mistake was not just in a story, but at the very top of the story —and it was deliberately provocative so people would be amused as they read on and learned the situation was not as bad as I’d tricked them into expecting.

In a story about the Gaston High School baseball team’s “Fear Factor” fundraiser, I led off with this:

“Don’t tell the child-abuse authorities, but Connor Matrisciano’s dad hooked shock collars to his son’s arms Saturday night and shocked him. Repeatedly.

While Connor juggled. With a goldfish hanging out of his mouth.”

The juggling and the fish were true. The shocking was not. The only shock occurred when Connor’s dad, who happens to be a Hillsboro Police detective, discovered this in Wednesday’s paper.

How did this error occur? Here’s a rough reconstruction of the miscommunication masterpiece.