A Little Flight Music

The last time the airline lost your luggage, what did you do? Shake your fist at them? Demand — unsuccessfully, of course — some kind of apology or, even more outrageous, compensation?

What about having your luggage broken? What about if that luggage was a cherished musical instrument, and the luggage handlers had been noted hurling it about as though it were a javelin?

I can imagine you now, sputtering in impotent rage.

Which is just what Dave Carroll did, until he decided to keep it real. After a year battling United Airlines' unresponsive and unapologetic management for the $1,200 he needed to repair his smashed guitar, Carroll has finally taken matters into his own hands. Via music video. Oh yeah, the real-o-meter is in the red.

His video, "United Breaks Guitars,” became an overnight sensation on YouTube after he uploaded it last Monday. The original song tells the story in an upbeat country twang with a chorus that gets right to the point: "you broke it, you should fix it, you're liable, just admit it." Carroll strums a guitar with a snapped neck as luggage handlers behind him make sport with a progressively battered guitar case.

He had promised the final customer service representative to tell him "no" (a now-infamous Ms. Irlweg), that he would make three videos about his experience with United and post them on the Internet. His goal is to get one million hits in one year, and within days of posting the first video he is well on his way. The wave of bad publicity did what no amount of fist-shaking could have accomplished: United immediately apologized, offered compensation, and even inquired whether it could use the video as part of its employee training.

But Carroll rejected the airline's money; he's having too much fun putting the company through the wringer to be placated now. "We had a pile of laughs making the recording and the video," he writes on his website. "I’ve been done 'being angry' for quite some time, and, if anything, I should thank United."

Somehow, though, I doubt video number two will be a song of gratitude.