The Slice: A little innocence can go a long way

A year ago, I got a little taste of how it feels to be the object of media attention.

It was instructive. Here’s what happened.

Back in September of 2013, a thunderstorm had blown over Spokane. That got me thinking about things people might do in anticipation of middle-of-the-night power outages. One strategy, something I had considered myself, involved setting a back-up alarm clock that doesn’t run on electricity.

Good idea or anal-retentive? I decided it might be the latter but still a reasonable precaution.

This led to me posting a brief item along those lines on The Slice Blog. I headlined it “Sometimes anal is the way to go.”

OK, I knew exactly what I was doing with that double-entendre. It was click-bait. But I would argue it was not 100 percent gratuitous because “anal” is a time-honored and dictionary recognized shorthand for “anal-retentive.”

Well, the S-R’s little corner of the Internet went ape. Multiple online publications picked up that blog post and it quickly piled up a huge number of hits.

One problem. People assumed (or pretended to assume) that …

• I had never heard of anal sex and this was a hideous/hilarious mistake. (Wrong. As I said, I knew what I was doing.)

• The deceptive headline was the result of me trying to create titillating confusion by using “anal” as an obscure version of “analog.” (Uh, no. I have never employed “anal” in that sense in my life.)

Soon national journalism reviews and other media sites were holding up “Sometimes anal is the way to go” as an error for the ages.

Only one reporter, a young guy in Seattle, bothered to actually contact me and seek an explanation.

Meantime, links to my original post continued to make the rounds across the country. Online commenters pounced. These people tended to be angry because they felt tricked. (Guilty as charged.) I guess they had hoped to read an appreciation of anal sex.

I had no one but myself to blame, of course. Still, it was interesting to see how many self-appointed mindreaders don’t really possess a talent for it.

Today’s Slice question: Do you consider fruit pie a food group?