I try to avoid using the same items in both this blog and my print column.

But once in a while, it happens.

On Monday morning, a reader named Janet Yoder emailed me a link to the police log in the Bozeman paper. It included an entertaining entry mentioning Spokane. I posted it on this blog at 8:07 that morning. You can check. It's still there.

But then I came in on Tuesday morning and decided that the thing in the Bozeman paper was deserving of more attention than I had given it. So I made it the first item in Thursday's print column, which I write Tuesday morning.

So far, so good. Right?

Well, late Tuesday morning I notice a tweet from a woman in the news department at a Spokane TV station. She has a link to the Bozeman paper's police log in question. And, to add insult to injury, the editor of the S-R has retweeted it.

(By the way, I am sure she came upon it on her own. She has a reputation for being a hard worker. She did nothing wrong.) 

Great, I think. Now people are apt to assume I lifted my Thursday column item from a TV station tweet.

I suppose that would not be the crime of the century. But it wouldn't be my proudest moment.

So do me a favor. If you happen to hear someone tomorrow accuse me of lifting the Bozeman thing from the TV tweet, please say, "Actually he had that more than 24 hours earlier."

Or perhaps you could just keep quiet. Because there is a truly excellent chance that I am the only person in Spokane who cares about the exact timing of how I arrived at the item atop Thursday's column.