I received an invitation in the mail recently to test drive a Maserati. I thought that was pretty cool, but I was confused by the offer. The invitation went on to explain that if I did test drive their car, they would then give me a pair of Bose headphones. At this point I stopped understanding everything I thought I knew about the world. Let’s see. Help me figure this out. I drive your $150,000 car and you give me a pair of headphones? I don’t get it.

I felt like there was something I had to be missing. So I gave it a shot. I will first say this. My guess is that the people at the Maserati dealership are well versed in figuring out who is really interested and who is there for the free headphones. Maybe my Birkenstocks gave me away. My test drive (by appointment only) was delayed so that the test car could be driven first by a man who came in admittedly early for his appointment but blustering about having to make a tee time at his club. No matter. I spent a few minutes sitting in the Ferraris that adorn the showroom.

When it did come my time for the test drive, I am ashamed to admit my discovery. It wasn’t special. It was a car. I somehow expected that angels would sing and I would suddenly feel waves of happiness flowing through my body. No such waves. It was just a car. (My car fanatic friend has properly berated me for expressing this view, though he was not with me for the test drive.) One of my lessons learned was simply that some ultimate luxury experiences aren’t that different from the standard everyday normal person experiences. This isn’t always the case. There is a huge jump in experience from economy to business or first class when flying, but when it comes to cars, I’ll skip the Maserati.

I told my neighbor about the invitation and the Bose offer. He said he’s gotten these offers in the past, but he didn’t believe them. That was in March. This week the postman dropped a package at my house. When I opened it I discovered a brand new shiny set of Bose headphones. I couldn’t resist checking online to discover the retail price was $180. I mean, these are headphones that will make the first class passengers on my next flight envious. All of this led me to wonder, what do I get if I test drive the Ferrari?