defective specimens

You guys are weird.

“What do you have for dinner in the evening?” the girl with the thick horn-rimmed glasses asks me.
I'm trying to translate the dish in my head, but I can't think of a suitable translation, so I'm looking for a paraphrase.
"A soup with potatoes, vegetables and noodles." To be on the safe side, I won't mention the chicken hearts.
"Sounds kinda gross. So I couldn't eat soup in the evening. Don't you have any supper? So we always have snacks.”
"Nein."
"You guys are weird."

faulty copy.

At the beginning of the year, a list of our names and birthplaces goes through the rows of tables. One place always stands out. That moment when many heads turn to me. And they giggle and ask for the tenth time where that is supposed to be. And if this place even exists.
Such a weird birthplace.

faulty copy.

"Aren't you putting up a real tree at Christmas?" asks the girl with the blond braid.
"No, ours is made of plastic."
"But a real tree is much nicer."
"Maybe, but we decorate ours very colorfully and then it is also very beautiful."
“Well, we always decorate our tree in a certain colour. My mum thinks brightly colored Christmas trees are tasteless and cheesy.”

faulty copy.

A stamp that suddenly turns the existing meter between this book and the shelf with the bestsellers into light years.

So there it is. There are no yellowed spots and the cover is also very attractive. And yet there is this one stamp on the lower cutting edge. This stamp that makes the book seem completely unattractive to all other customers in the department store. A stamp that suddenly turns the existing meter between this book and the shelf with the bestsellers into light years.

faulty copy.

What tends to deter other customers magically attracts me. First of all because it's a book that I can afford with my pocket money as a teenager and because I've already tried the bestsellers. No really. Most of the time they were a disappointment to me: trite, hyped, under famous names with a cover that usually held more promise than the content. For me, this combination was mostly the guarantee recipe for disappointment. Exceptions confirm the rule here as well. But with defective copies it was always an adventure. So where was this deficiency, where were the mistakes? Where are they hiding? I haven't been able to discover them to this day, but I have found my favorite authors and books. It was never my intention to look for defective copies, but the books in the junk box fascinated me. Can honesty even be a defect?

Maybe because treasures are never lying around, not presented.

Even today, it's more the unknown films that fascinate me. And the books from the flea market that nobody wants. It's the music I wasn't looking for and don't know if it's my therapy or if I need therapy after listening to it. In other words: I have a heart for imperfect specimens, for the unloved, the forgotten, the abandoned, the apostate, the abandoned and broken, for the soft in the hard. Maybe because treasures are never lying around, not presented. You look for treasure. You have a story, a past. That's what makes them so valuable.
My soul developed an aversion to the mainstream even before it knew there actually was a word for all the things that don't interest me. This was at a time when being different was anything but cool.

And yet my compass needle always turned to the unpopular, the misunderstood, the defective specimens.
Because I am one myself. A defective specimen. Full of scratches and signs of wear and tear in the soul, strange fears and qualities that are difficult to classify. A homeless little alien in a human costume. However, things seem to have changed in the society I live in these days. It's ok to be different. Suddenly it is even desirable. But the extent to which it is ok to be different is still subject to strict social and media dictates.

This probably has little to do with the real, unfiltered treasures that one encounters in real life. And maybe it's not the flaws that fascinate me so much, but the feeling of holding a piece of raw truth in my hands, which becomes something special in its imperfection. And maybe because I feel asked to be considerate of my own opinion.