Contracts lessons people learned the hard way

I signed a contract without reading the fine print

It was late October, one of those periods where you have three tabs open looking for work and nothing is converting. A client came through a referral, seemed fine, had a real company, sent over a PDF that was eleven pages long. I skimmed the scope section and the payment schedule, which both looked okay. The rest of it was dense grey text in a small font, the kind that makes your eyes slide off the page. I had rent due in twelve days. I remember that specifically because I had the invoice calculator open in another tab.