MILLERSBURG — Speaking before an audience of two municipal employees and a man who had mistaken the event for a zoning hearing, the nation’s fire hydrants gathered Tuesday evening to say they feel deeply misunderstood, and that dogs, while a factor, are “honestly the least of it.”

“Everyone assumes the dog thing is the main issue,” said the hydrant at the corner of Alder and 4th, which was selected by lottery to deliver opening remarks. “It’s not. The dog thing is a Tuesday. I’m talking about thirty years of being parked in front of.”

The hydrants, which have stood at attention through every season without a single day off, said they are routinely blocked by sedans whose owners claim to be “just running in for a second.” Several noted that they have watched the same Subaru “run in for a second” since 2019.

Snowplows came in for particular criticism. A hydrant from the 800 block of Fairview Terrace described being buried under a four-foot berm every January, then dug out by a volunteer neighbor who posts about it online. “I’m grateful, obviously,” the hydrant said. “But I’d be more grateful if I weren’t entombed by a city vehicle with my own address on the door.”

The evening’s most heated exchange concerned paint. Hydrants have no say in their color, which is decided by a municipal committee that last convened in 1987 and, according to attendees, “chose chrome yellow and then went to lunch.” One hydrant, painted a shade it described as “regret,” asked the assembled officials whether anyone had ever considered how it feels to be the only thing on the block that is both a life-saving device and the color of a school bus.

“Nobody asks us,” it said. “Mailboxes get to be blue. Mailboxes.”

Dr. Lorraine Kettleby-Voss, Senior Fellow in Curbside Affect at the Institute for Municipal Feelings, said the complaints reflect a broader pattern of neglect. “We have a society that relies on hydrants in its worst hour and ignores them in every other hour,” she said. “It’s the structural equivalent of only calling your brother when the house is on fire.”

“We’re not asking for a parade. We’re asking for eighteen inches of clearance and a little eye contact.”

City officials present at the meeting said they were “taking the concerns seriously” and would “circle back,” a phrase hydrants say they have heard before and which they described as “a thing you say to a pipe.”

The town hall ended early after a hydrant on the dais lost its cap during a particularly emphatic statement about water pressure. A representative from Public Works replaced it without comment, which several hydrants later cited as proof of the problem.

Asked whether the evening had been productive, the hydrant at Alder and 4th paused for several seconds. “A woman walked past with a Labrador during the Q&A,” it said. “She didn’t even look at us. Honestly, that’s all I wanted.”

The next town hall is scheduled for March, pending snow removal.