TV and Math

I just have to get this off my chest (yes, such things bother me, I'm a nerd) -- Last night on NCIS: Los Angeles they said that Callan had been in foster care from when he was 5 until he was 18 and had changed houses every few weeks and sometimes every few days. And that his longest stint in one house had been 3 months. And that he had been in 37 homes. And the impossibility of all of those facts being true distracted me for the rest of the show.

Even if you assume he was almost 6 and aged out of the system on his 18th birthday, that is still 12 years. Which is about 3 homes a year (12 x 3 = 36). Which means his average stay had to be around 4 months. Which means there is *no way* that his longest stay was 3 months. And that is with me fudging the numbers and estimating and just using the "does that sound plausible" test - not even doing any actual calculations. Which one figures a television show writer might do. So, of course, instead of paying attention to the rest of the show I sat there thinking "maybe the script said 137... that sort of works" (average stay is then slightly more than a month). Or "maybe in between homes he was in an orphanage/group home and they aren't counting that, wait, did they say he stayed at each place on a few weeks or that he moved every few weeks because if it is the second one that nixes my group home theory..." I'm just saying. It was incredibly distracting.