>> DMcG, that doesn't work so well because white/black socks will remain intrinsically white/black socks and wine will just get diluted. What if you grab a black sock and put it back into the black sock box? You'd have 96 black socks (and 4 white ones) in the black sock box and 95 white socks (5 black ones) in the white sock box.

96 black socks + 5 black socks = 101 black socks.
This would mean that one of the previous white socks has turned black.

What really happens:
after step one, in the white-sock-box you have 100 white socks and 5 black socks, and in the black-sock-box you have 95 black socks.

If you happen to pick 4 white + 1 black socks, after step 2 you have:
96 white socks + 4 black socks in the white-sock-box, and 96 black socks and 4 white socks in the black-sock-box.