I have a list a mile long of things I have opinions about but somehow I have chosen sweet little wind chimes to be the first bearers of my criticism. (Although let’s note right here right now that not all of Khis My Ass will be criticisms; my opinions both for and against things are equally intense and both will be represented.) Just as I was dressing in the bathroom before finally disciplining myself to sit down and write, I heard some chimes in the distance, felt a shiver of revulsion and thought, “it’s chime time.” (I didn’t actually think that but I did think hearing chimes while thinking about chimes was a good reason to write about chimes first, so here we go).
Formative chime encounters
About two years ago, I was renting a room from a guy in Austin (What, a transitional period? Never!) and it was a particularly blustery winter night and I remember waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning cursing the neighbor’s clanging-ass wind chimes, and also cursing the other neighbor’s dogs that they kept outside in the middle of the goddamn winter, who were simultaneously barking their tits off. It’s unclear if the dogs were barking at the wind, the chimes, the cold, god or nothing at all, but together it was a miserable cacophony. Not long after that fateful night I figured out where the chime neighbor lived and saw that their chimes were absolutely giant, which explained why they were mega loud and annoying during the middle-of-the-night gale. I wondered then why the neighbor didn’t tie them up or take them inside (or throw them in the trash) or something. And if the chimes were that loud from where I was laying awake in bed I couldn’t imagine how you could sleep through the sonic shitstorm of them being right outside your window. It was also beyond me how immediate neighbors did not choose to carry out some vigilante noise justice, but maybe not everyone is calibrated to “I cover my ears when the ambulance goes by?”
Either later that year or the following year (time is immaterial) I was house sitting for friends not far from the initial wind chime incident, and while I hadn’t noticed their very appropriately-sized chimes initially, I heard them one evening and immediately went outside with a chair, some bubble wrap and my trusty blue tape and taped those little fuckers closed for the duration of my stay. Best sleep of my life.
Wind chime bottom line
I am well aware that I have some hippie-adjacent tendencies (lesbaru, natural products, composting everywhere I go) but wind chimes are not one of them. They irritate me the same way yoga does; when I encounter both I become inexplicably more aggro bro instead of centered and relaxed as intended.
Wind chimes are annoying and unnecessary; the wind already has a noise and it’s calming and wonderful so let me hear it without interference! Wind chimes are the lip injections of outdoor acoustics; your lips were just fine (attractive even) before but you turned up the lip volume and now everything feels a little off and uncomfortable.
Funny
This person on Reddit (of course) 3-D printed a wind chime silencer. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Exceptions
I am theoretically more open to chimes that have a low pitch and subtle tone but I have yet to encounter these in the residential wild. I thought maybe this type of sound would come from a wooden wind chime so I googled “what do wooden wind chimes sound like” (nobody uses a question mark in search) and was brought to this website with bajillions of different wind chimes that you can play samples of (none of which seem to be wooden) and I regretted this search instantly. Even the $950 chimes sounded tinny and annoying to me. I also watched a bunch of other random wind chime videos and did not find any of them pleasing. I guess I just hate wind chimes.
Here’s what I want to know:
1. Am I the only wind chime hater or does anyone else share my (rabid) distaste for them?
2. If you are a wind chime owner do you ever consider that there might be people who can’t stand your chimes, and that these people may be in close proximity to you? Does it not bother you when your wind chimes go bat shit insane during a wind event? Do you feel any responsibility for limiting their increased noise during these times?
3. If you are a wind chime connoisseur are you aware of any high-end (or low-end but awesome) chimes that have a deeper, fuller tone? Not that I’m ever going to purchase any, but just to be well versed.