The five stages of grief have nothing on the six stages of debugging. First comes denial—"That can't happen"—because your code is obviously flawless. Then bargaining with reality—"That doesn't happen on my machine"—the programmer's equivalent of "it's not me, it's you." As the evidence mounts, you reach anger mixed with confusion—"That shouldn't happen"—followed by the existential crisis of "Why does that happen" where you question your career choices. Finally, enlightenment strikes with "Ohh, I see"—that beautiful moment when the bug reveals itself. But the journey ends with the soul-crushing realization: "How did that ever work?" Because somehow your broken code has been running in production for months.

The confidence-to-reality pipeline in software development is brutal. One minute you're smugly typing away, convinced you're crafting digital poetry that would make Knuth weep. The next minute your code's running around like a happy little psychopath with zero regard for your intentions or basic logic. That smug "Me writing great code" energy evaporates faster than free pizza at a standup meeting when you see what your creation actually does in production. The worst part? That bug looks so damn pleased with itself.