Don't wear yellow with purple

We have long established that I'm not visual. I find it incredibly difficult to visualise and when I say "snake" I don't see the picture in my head first; I see the word. Apparently this is not normal.

When I was in high school, during the early Pleistocene, we were taught that women could not be colour blind. We were assured that it was a genetically inherited disorder on the Y chromosome and thus only affected the males of the species.
Given that I have a really annoying ability to retain arbitrary pieces of information which are entirely useless for day-to-day survival I approached the colour-blindness test at cabin crew flight training with great confidence. This was a test I absolutely couldn't fail. I didn't even have to study (bonus, since that's not one of my strong points)
I failed.

Fortunately it wasn't a critical test for cabin crew to pass, so I ignored it (obviously they were wrong) and carried on with my life.
I have even stated this "fact" at various dinner parties and gatherings of friends and raised it again yesterday at lunch with Scientist no 2 (Yes, we are strange and yes, we do have strange conversations at the table)

He got a gleam in his eye - "Not true" and proceed to prove it to me via a long complicated equation

Being innumerate I fold the minute I see letters and numbers in brackets - surefire way of winning an argument with me.

So this morning I Googled it and found the Ishihara Test for Color Blindness - the same test I took all those years ago. Once again I managed 2, the others are totally invisible to me.

I can see this one - the different colours are visible as a number

I can't see this one - it's a jumble of spots with no discernable pattern

This one looks exactly like the previous one to me. I checked it had a different name. Twice.

I can see this one. Not as clearly as the first one, but I can see it. 

Nope. Nothing.

Zip. Nada. Pretty spots. No number.

I am Red-Green colour blind. According to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute only .4% of women are colour blind so I guess I would have found out earlier if I hadn't had the balance issues meaning I couldn't finish my flying training. Pilots have to be able to distinguish; it's what allows you to line up your approach at the right angle for safe landings. The clever engineering people designed the lights to show green when your angle is right, red when it's wrong. Maybe they weren't so clever, maybe they should have chosen colours that everyone can see.

I'm wondering if I can approach the extremely exclusive, expensive school I attended and ask for a refund of the fees. Might be useful to pay off the lights and water bill.

Fortunately Walter's not colour blind, I shall ask Scientist no 2 to do the sums to work out his chances. Or he can just do the test.

Take the test here