One inconvenience the majority of freshmen at Fairfield encounter is not being able to have a car. Taking a cab requires effort and money, and most surprisingly the virtue of patience … a whole lot of patience.
Waiting for a cab in September didn’t seem so bad when the air was crisp, yet comfortable and the whole scenario hadn’t lost its novelty. But the nights have gotten colder and darker at a freakishly rapid rate. Girls’ outfits have gotten skimpier with each glance and Fairfield cabbies just haven’t been making the cut. Even sadder, the warm coveted automobiles former high school seniors drove just a few sweet months ago are nowhere in sight.
Though mainly applicable to freshmen who are not allowed cars on campus, upperclassmen feel the sting too. Shane Hogan, ’04 said the whole “cab situation” is that there “aren’t too many of them.” Maybe that explains the frantic chasing of the cabs that turns perfectly nice kids into battling forces for a seemingly higher cause, a ride.
Is the Fairfield Cab Company overworked and understaffed? Whatever the case may be, a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction is prevalent among the student body. “If they responded to our needs better they would make more customers happy, especially students on campus,” said Katy Lawnick, ’06. Some students even protest the driving skills of Fairfield Cab drivers. “They don’t even know how to break,” Bernadette Miledo, ’06 stated bluntly.
Student “customers” often feel more like nuisances. Having to call a cab three or four times only to hear each time “they’re on campus right now, honey” is disheartening and insulting. Clearly, if the cabs had been on campus all that time, one would have been able to make its way over to its destination.
The delivery man for Pizza Mediterranean once came through with a whopping deal of an $8 ride to the beach complimented by a radio whose one working station bumped disco for the few awkward minutes.
But for those students not on the receiving end of a kind stranger or empathetic upperclassman, cabs really are the only means of transportation. So what’s the underprivileged first-year student or car-less upperclassmen to do? A simple solution was offered by Courtney Keefe ’06, “Fairfield Cab needs to get up on its game and stock up on cabs before winter.”
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