Sure, I'll play...
Back in college, I signed up for a 32-mile, one-lap xc race in central PA. Old "Coburn Challenge" or something. A buddy from home came up the night before, so of course we went bar-hopping all over town and got somewhat fubar. Then, I didn't know anything about nutrition, so we just tried to eat a lot at the Ye 'Old College Diner that morning. Woke up with a bit of a fever too, forehead felt hot. But I wasn't gonna cancel because dammit I paid about $32 for that entrance fee and I was a college student who could've used that $32 for a lot of beer.
So, about 2 hours after breakfast, hung-over, mild fever, and two water-bottles on my bike, I set out on this 32-mile rock central PA mud race. It was around late March I believe.
Needless to say,1/2 way through I was out of water and thirsty as hell. I rode past a creek with beautiful clear, fast-moving water. So clear I could see the rock-bed at the bottom. Of course, everyone knows not to drink creek water. So I salivated for it but rode up a gravel-road climb about 100 yards, dying of thirst, and couldn't stand it and turned around and rode back down the hill, the wrong way during a race! Filled up the bottles and started going up the hill again. I splashed about a 1/2 bottle on my head and it felt SOOO GOOD. It was probably only about 74F outside, but my head felt hot so the 50F water felt wonderful. Then...
I couldn't take it any longer, God I was crazy and the feeling came upon me like a title wave and I just had to drink this forbidden water. It tasted DELICIOUS! Like heaven. After drinking like about 8 oz real quick, I was feeling better about this entire thing of drinking from a creek when I was always told no one should do it. But it was so good I was sure the water was clean. So I rode up that gravel-road hill about 200 or 300 yards, feeling so much better than when I did it the 100 yards the first time, and then...
I had to throw the bike down, run off into the woods and unleash a boneless brown trout in a hurry!
Waited a moment, and it was okay. I was done. Awesome. So the water wasn't so great, but at least I didn't feel sick or anything. I decide I'm done and start looking for some leaves. Nothing but dirt and bushes with bare twigs on 'em. (Stuff doesn't grow leaves in PA until around May or something.) I don't remember the exact timing but it was early spring and nothing was grown yet. So I scan further and further away from me looking for some leaf or better yet leaves that I can find and there is NOTHING! Then...
I was so desperate I looked everywhere, even right below me. Not sure of the logic in that, but when you don't see anything far I guess look close as if I was crouched on some nice bed of leaves and didn't notice. But thankfully my eyes did scan around like that in panic because I noticed I was wearing SOCKS! YES, SWEEET SOCKS! I was saved. I finished the race with one sock. The other is somewhere deep in the woods of central PA.
Never drank from a creek again.
So if you see a mountain biker with one sock, you know what happened. If he's not wearing any socks, then he's either a weed-smoking hippy or maybe even more dense than me and he drank from a stream twice.