honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Thursday, August 5, 2004

WARRIOR DIARY
Flying home shouldn't be anything to lose sleep over

By Abraham Elimimian
Special to The Advertiser

After the Western Athletic Conference media trip at Reno, Nev., was completed, Timmy Chang and I woke up with few hours of sleep.

University of Hawai'i cornerback Abraham Elimimian, 22, one of the top defensive backs in the Western Athletic Conference, will write about his preparation for the coming football season. A weekly series of articles will run up to the Warriors' Sept. 4 season opener against Florida Atlantic.

We headed to the airport with plans of catching up on our lost sleep. Little did we know that we were in for a bitter disappointment.

When we entered this anonymous airline at the airport, we were told that the transportation officials had grounded all flights to and from San Francisco due to heavy fog.

After an hour-and-a-half delay of chatting with individuals within the plane and watching the movie "50 First Dates," we finally departed to San Francisco.

Timmy and I took a scene out of the Hertz commercial where O.J. Simpson runs through various terminals to catch his flight. When we arrived at our terminal, our hearts sunk when we saw our plane pulling out on its voyage to Hawai'i.

Timmy gave me a bewildered look that seemed to foreshadow things to come.

I later went to customer service to catch the next flight to Hawai'i.

We were given standby tickets for the 4 p.m. flight, and a guaranteed 8:10 p.m. flight.

After being promised of being accepted on the standby flight to Honolulu, we were later astonished to find out that our names were no more closer than the names that were to be chosen on the 4 p.m. flight.

To my surprise, Timmy began to work his magic. He proceeded to customer service with coupons worth 14 dollars. Thanks to Timmy's quick work and the help of this airline, we headed to the nearest restaurant.

When we boarded the flight to Hawai'i for the 8:10 p.m. flight, Timmy and I were in for another surprise.

When I arrived at my seat I found out that another person was in my seat. When I asked him to show me his ticket stub he could not find it. I luckily took the seat with Timmy to the right of me.

Just when I thought this whole ordeal was over, a young girl looked at Timmy. Telepathically, Timmy knew that she had another ticket for his seat. After negotiations with staff on the flight, we were told that the airline had double booked our seats. Nevertheless, Timmy and I had won this round, and were finally ready to head back to Honolulu.