“Cowabunga! Check out this groovy-looking dude!” thought Peter Cooper, giving his reflection a Jeremiah Johnson nod of approval before heading to his 50th class reunion. “Golly gosh gee, I look as good as I did when I was Prom King — still smashing!”
Diagnosed at age five with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative genetic disorder of the eye, Cooper has “tunnel vision” and is also sensitive to light. But he never let blindness define him. He let his coolness, shades and confidence do the talking. Movies had taught him that cool glasses turn a blind man from a sob story to a badass hero.
Resisting the urge to smooch himself in the mirror (again), Cooper donned his suave-looking dark blue classic Ray-Ban Stories Wayfarer sunglasses, grabbed his white cane and, after another 30 minutes of self-admiration, finally made his way out the door.
When he entered the reunion, his classmates gawked at his stylish sense of fashion. “Check him out, he must be so cool!” he overheard.
Cooper, 66, interjected the evening’s conversation with words like “coolio” and “awesomesauce,” and he made sure he described his former women classmates as “hotties.” He could feel his panache level skyrocketing with the brand new vocabulary he had Googled and memorized that morning. He was up with the times!
As Cooper continued talking, he realized no one was actually listening or, at the very least, fawning over him.
“Great to see you and all, but where did you get those sunglasses?” said Allison King, ogling his Ray-Bans.
“He seemed so cool from a distance, but once we started talking I realized he was kind of, I don’t know, boring?” said another classmate. “I guess I just assumed from his disability that he would have some awesome backstory or offer me wise advice, but it was mostly just awkward chitchat. He was so basic and, honestly, I was let down.”