Lost in Sock Land

Before camp I went to Costco and bought Steph two 8-packs of socks—one pack had 8 pairs of all different-colored solids and one pack had 8 pairs of all different-colored stripes—thus 16 different pairs of socks (you can see where this is going). She came home with 9 matched pairs of socks and 6 different lone socks. What are the odds* that a kid will lose 8 socks—and only one pair in that whole bunch? Naturally I convinced her that it will be fun to occasionally wear mismatched socks like her cool cousin Jen.

*If you are one of those people who like statistics, feel free to calculate the precise probability of this occurrence, but you can keep the answer to yourself, as I am asking in a purely rhetorical fashion.

Comments

[Di]

See my previous comment re: laundry from camp and throw all the socks out. And be thankful it wasn't a boy, or one dirty pair would come home and the rest would be folded and still in the packaging they came in. Ugh!

[Karen]

No funds for disposable wardrobes in this family!

Andy first went away to camp at age 8. When his parents picked him up at the end of the 8 weeks, the same sheets were still on his bed that they'd put on them the first day, the same towel was still draped over a rafter from the first day (all the other sheets and towels were still nicely folded in his duffel bag), and there was nary a dimple in his toothpaste tube. Ah, camp!

[Maggie]

It's possible that the chances are around 50%, but I'm really shaky with statistics. I did it as an educational exercise, which you may choose to ignore!

http://pandorastea.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-this-right-statistics.html

[Karen]

Holy cow! Good on you. I could just NEVER get probability.

[James]

You may not be interested, but my program simulating these lost socks is up on my blog.

It seems that the situation you encountered with Steph's socks is actually the most probable one.

[Karen]

WOW! You people are amazing!