There are people in this world who love surprises. I am not one of them. As Jalopnik’s Video Director, it’s my job to make sure surprises don’t happen while we’re on a video shoot. Yet, in late February, the Jalopnik staff managed to put one past me—and I don’t completely hate them for it.
I am partially colorblind, and before you ask me “what color is insert object here,” you should know that there are different degrees and severities of that condition. Some people confuse red and green, some blue and purple, and some don’t see color at all. It’s all very confusing, I know, but to determine my degree of colorblindness, Gizmodo sat me down to take a test on camera.
Except they didn’t. It wasn’t the tech wizards at Gizmodo sitting me down for the test at all. It was my esteemed colleagues at Jalopnik, and they were planning on messing with me.
It turns out that my fellow Jalopnik staffers found a company called Enchroma, which created eyewear to help those who are color blind see colors once again. It sounds like magic or science fiction, but in some cases, it has actually worked. And because Jalopnik is run by truly terrible people, they wanted to test these glasses on me, without me actually knowing.
And thus begins the story of my terrible coworkers, funky-looking glasses, and a Ferrari.
They truly went all out for this. Fake meetings were held. Fake call sheets were made. Fake emails were circulated. Even a fake set was created, which was so poorly done that I wonder today how I didn’t call bullshit right then, but it worked. All to give me a shot at seeing red.
The amount of things I didn’t know about that day were revealed by my facial expression when a 2016 Ferrari California T pulled into the parking lot where I thought we were meeting the Weinermobile. My brain literally shut down as I tried to trace all the steps that got me there.
What’s funny, is that my state of colorblindess might not be as bad as Jalopnik or Enchroma thinks, because I’ve seen Ferrari red my whole life. Being partially color blind got me behind the wheel of a Ferrari California T for the day. It was very fast, it looked great, it made a great noise, it was fun. Any day spent in a Ferrari is better than one otherwise. And better still, it was red.
Look who’s laughing now, Jalopnik.