The expectation vs reality of code comprehension is just brutal. You start with "I'll just read someone else's code" with all the confidence in the world, then five minutes later you're staring at the monitor with that exact snake face – a mixture of suspicion, confusion, and existential dread.
But the real punchline? That "someone else" is often just you from three months ago. Nothing humbles a developer quite like opening up your own masterpiece from last quarter and wondering what kind of fever dream you were having when you wrote that nested ternary inside a map function with zero comments.