Boot Mystery

On Thursday, we received 4-5 inches of new snow on top of the inch or so that we already had on the ground at our house. Fortunately for me, Jacob has become quite proficient at using the snowblower, and I have not had to do much shoveling at all this winter. When he was bundling up to go outside to clear the driveway the other day, we could not find his boots. What we did have was one size 10 right boot and one size 8 left boot. We were certain that the solution to our puzzle was that Adam had accidentally taken Jacob's size 8 boot to his apartment thinking it was his size 10. We shot off a text to Adam and waited for his reply. In the meantime, Jacob found an older pair of boots to squeeze into to get the snowblowing done.

A while later, Adam sent us a message that made everything even more mind-boggling. He indeed had two different sized boots at his place, but they were a size 10 left and a size 9 right. Yes, now a size 9 had entered the equation. I searched high and low trying to find Jacob's other size 8 boot without success. We eventually came across the size 9 left boot and drove to Adam's apartment to swap his 10 for the 9. Jacob's feet fit sufficiently enough into the 9s. I am an expert at losing single socks in the laundry, but I am really mystified as to what happened to the missing size 8 boot. Weird.