diff --git a/tests/categories.js b/tests/categories.js
index 33d816c808..5d03ebe167 100644
--- a/tests/categories.js
+++ b/tests/categories.js
@@ -1,24 +1,25 @@
 // this test currently needs to talk to the redis database.
 // get the redis config info from root directory's config.json:
-var nconf = require('nconf');
-nconf.file({file: __dirname + '/../config.json'});
+var path = require('path'),
+	nconf = require('nconf'),
+	winston = require('winston');
+nconf.file({ file: path.join(__dirname, '../config.json') });
 
 process.on('uncaughtException', function (err) {
-	// even though we load the nconf config above,
-	// which has the _real_ port that redis is running on,
-	// Redis is throwing connection errors.
-	//
-	// Catching uncaught exceptions like this is frowned upon.
-	// It's just here as some stopgap measure  until someone can answer
-	// the following question so we can do The Right Thing prior to merging into master.
-	//
-	// Where is redis attempting to connect to port 6379 in this test?
-	console.log(err);
+	winston.error('Encountered error while running test suite: ' + err.message);
 });
 
 var	assert = require('assert'),
-	RDB = require('../src/redis'),
-	Categories = require('../src/categories');
+	RDB = require('../src/redis');
+
+// Reds is not technically used in this test suite, but its invocation is required to stop the included
+// libraries from trying to connect to the default Redis host/port
+var reds = require('reds');
+reds.createClient = function () {
+	return reds.client || (reds.client = RDB);
+};
+
+var Categories = require('../src/categories');
 
 describe('Categories', function() {
 	var	categoryObj;