The BuG or the WindShield

"well it's a strange old game
- you learn it slow...
one step forward and it's back to go.
sometimes you're the windshield,
sometimes you're the bug"
I can't tell you the amount of times I have been taken in by the seductive lines of a client, the lure of the words: "unlimited budget, anything goes, need it right away".
Thinking I am the windshield I fly, throwing myself into the creative process with total abandon. Days spent immersed, swallowed up from concept sketches to the final designs sent off.
I think this won't happen again, and it does.
...here I am again, a client not paying, not responding to emails, and in the middle a friend who called me initially to help out his son, and now... I am the bug once again.
Not thinking I needed a contract, money upfront, just thinking about their needs.
Ouch, squished again.