As an editor, it drives me crazy when a reporter comes back with a story missing a key fact. The “five Ws” and the “handful of Hs” are all I want. Who, what, when, where and why? How long? How much? How soon?

“How,” though, is often more like “however,” since there are always roadblocks to the truth. We hit on a dandy obstacle this week chasing down the strange tale of two Jersey County dog kennel operators charged with multiple counts of inhumane treatment of animals.

From the time I first got the tip on this story on Tuesday, all I wanted to know was “how many” animals were involved. That fact eluded us for another two days — a bit like a spooked Shih Tzu running for cover — which, in fact, was pretty close to the truth. There were Shih Tzus, Pomeranians, Boston terriers and all kinds of breeds, and they were in such miserable shape that it literally took your breath away.

The first number I heard was 70, which seemed pretty incredible, but reporter Laura Griffith, despite her best efforts, could get no more than an estimate of “at least 60” on our first day’s story.

By the next day, the number was still wavering. The veterinarian said he’d treated “about 35” and expected to treat “dozens more.” I heard privately the number was about 100. I’m pretty sure police and animal abuse investigators were still trying to figure it out.

By Thursday, it was time for the truth. At a press conference, State’s Attorney Ben Goetten and Sheriff Mark Kallal said the number was 115.

That’s official enough for me. That’s the number we’re going to stick with until it changes again.

When people die, the loved ones they leave behind are best served by thinking only of their fondest memories. The same thing can be said on the passing of the family cat.

And when the cat lives to be 22, there are a lot of memories.

“Tillie” came into the world on March 29, 1986, and left it on tax day, April 15, 2008. She was one for the ages. She may not have been the oldest cat on record, but she seemed like it, and by the end, it was time. We all cried our eyes out, but we were strangely at peace.

She was a long-haired domestic with a fiery temper that convinced me she was of Irish decent. She could be cuddly when she wanted to be, but she had no compunction about using her claw power. And her feline canines found their way into my hand more times than I can count. There was no messing with the “queen.”

Our three kids grew up with Tillie, and until this week, none of them could remember a time without her. Typically a family will go through multiple cats in a lifetime. Ours went through one.

For most of the first 15 or so years, the cat slept with me and my wife, and she had this nasty habit of jumping on the bed and climbing over me to get to the restful spot on my wife’s side. Only a hard day of bug chasing could break that habit, and on those days, she was too exhausted to get past me.

And, of course, there was no need for an alarm clock. She ran on an engine that required stoking every morning at 5 a.m. Cats are said to sleep an average of 20 hours a day, and I could never figure how she picked her particular breakfast schedule.

She spent a lot of time outdoors and could be gone hours at a time. One night, she got a little too smart and climbed up on the neighbors’ carport roof. Yours truly was called upon for rescue detail and forced to get out the extension ladder at something like 3 in the morning. I’m pretty sure my neighbors slept through it, since the cops never came.

Until the last couple of months she remained active. As recently as last week she stood and stared at the back door long enough that I let her out for a stroll around the house. It was her last good walk.

I’ve tried various ways to estimate how old she was in human years. The old formula called for a 1 to 7, human-to-cat ratio, but that has been shown as inaccurate in recent years. A cat’s first couple of years are more like 24 to a human, then they slow down. I couldn’t find a single chart estimating how old a 22-year-old cat would be, but the closest estimate I could get is somewhere around 105.

That’s old, in anyone’s book.

She had a remarkable life, extended no doubt by her royal treatment.

I buried her Wednesday, at the bottom of the back yard, under a pine tree. The rain will stay off her that way, and the pine needles will provide fine cover. I had a sign out front that proudly noted our home as a “Kitty Crossing.” I moved it to the bottom of the hill. It was the least I could do for an old friend.

She was, after all, the queen.

The gas crisis is making friends out of strangers.

I discovered that fact Thursday during my weekly fill-up, when complete strangers on both sides of my pump felt compelled to talk to me about the price of fuel. I was at the Conoco station at Glen Carbon Road and Illinois Route 159 in Glen Carbon.

The first to comment was an older man, around 70, wearing a ball cap and coat to keep himself dry in a pouring rain. It had rained the entire day and this was late afternoon, and both of us had enough, even under a protective canopy. He was filling up a pickup truck to my left and was the first to speak.

“Awful, isn’t it?” he said, catching my attention. I immediately knew what he was talking about.

“Yeah,” I shot back as the gauge passed $20. “You’d think we could at least get a free car wash.”

“Or a cup of coffee,” he rejoined.

I smiled and went on with my pumping….. $30, $31, $32.

That day, of course, gas prices hit another record. Hardly a person could believe the signage when they pulled onto the lot. It was almost a joke.

A young woman on my right came around the back of her car and approached mine, just close enough for a casual exchange. She actually had a smile on her face, enjoying a black-hearted moment.

“Three dollars and fifty nine cents,” she pronounced crisply. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”

“Yes it is,” I said, noting that she forgot to mention the “point nine.” As in “$3.59.9.”

It was an odd moment. Except for times when I recognize people at the gas station, I almost never speak to anyone. And here, people on both sides of my gas pump greeted me like a friend. I felt like I was on a crowded elevator stuck between floors — when you have no choice but to talk.

That day, as I always do, I used my debit card and hoped I had enough in the account to cover me. The final damage was $56 and change — the most I ever spent to fill up a gas tank.

I rarely carry cash on me anymore, and as I pulled out of the lot I saw a group of young men with collection canisters at the front door. I could read only the word “mission” on their sign, so I figured whatever they were up to had to be worthwhile.

I stopped in the parking lot, rolled down my window and waved one of them over. He presented me with an empty plastic container, into which I plunked 70 cents in coins. Not counting my $56 in fuel, the change was all my car and I had left.

The caller had a simple question, so much so that it almost caught me off guard.

“Do you guys have a copy editor there?” he wanted to know.

“Yes,” I said cautiously, suspecting the chastising that was about to come. “We have several.”

“Well, then, why don’t you catch your mistakes?”

“We miss things once in a while,” I admitted, vastly understating the truth, but establishing my typical defensive posture. I never jump the newsroom ship no matter how much it’s listing, especially when people want to challenge our operations.

“Once in a while?” he laughed. “You’ve had all kinds of them lately!” He then proceeded to point them out. One by one, the litany continued, and I was just glad the caller couldn’t see me cringe.

“And then there’s the obit in today’s paper. You’ve got this woman married to a man in December 2008 in one paragraph and later you say he died in 1964!”

Ouch, I thought (or said out loud). “We didn’t catch that one.”

“And the other day,” he continued, “you had a police item …..”

The rant went on and I took it for a couple of minutes because I felt I had it coming. This guy was a regular reader and I didn’t want to give him anything more than a promise to do better, which I eventually did.

Telling readers that “we’re only human” only goes so far when it comes to excuses, but it’s about as true as truth gets.

Newspapers commit a host of errors, and not all of them are the responsibility of the staff. A lot of what we write is based on submission (police reports, obituaries, weddings, etc.) and many of those have mistakes when they arrive — wrong dates, wrong name spellings, wrong addresses.

Then, there are the mistakes we make as hampered journalists. We hear somebody on the phone say, for instance, the name “Heff,” and it sounds just like “H-E-S-S” when it’s spelled. We’ll read it back, and the party on the other end will hear it spelled just like he thought he was saying it.

Part of that miscommunication could be the bologna sandwich the caller was eating or it could be our own deaf ears — or the motorcycles passing by on Broadway, drowning out all conversation.

There are also the mistakes we make as harried journalists. I have my own little form of shorthand. If I write A B C D E F in my notes, I could interpret that as “Anybody But Charlie Does Excellent Fishing.” Then again, I could also interpret it as “Afghan Businessman Charlie Does Equestrian Feeding.”

Then, there are the mistakes we make we when flat don’t pay attention — using “were” for “we’re” and the like. Spellcheck simply doesn’t catch everything.

We butcher grammar, usage, spelling and subject-verb agreement so often that you’d think we do it on purpose. You couldn’t be more wrong.

I’d love to have people on our staff who do nothing but copy-editing, but at a newspaper our size, copy-editing is only one of many responsibilities. Sometimes it should be the most important thing we do, but all too often it isn’t.

Most of our critics, of course, have never worked at a newspaper, have no comprehension of what takes place on the inside (we call it the “Daily Miracle”) and only know what they see in print. And once it’s printed there’s no taking it back.

Doctors, at least, can bury their mistakes. A newspaper’s live on in infamy.