I’m writing this week’s post on a Sunday afternoon. Why is that significant? Because it’s the absolute best day of the week for ‘80s music. My wife and I end up finding our way to the car around noon every Sunday to flip on her XM and listen to reruns of Casey Kasem’s American Top 40. While it’s nice to hear the countdown in its original form, we both listen specifically for the long-distance dedication.

Quite frankly, it’s the finest moment of ‘80s radio, and the one thing in the car you’re not allowed to interrupt. Whether real or fake, the dedications are the pinnacle of cheesiness, and that’s what makes them wonderful. Every Sunday I listen to Casey read the week’s dedication in his finest heartbreaking radio voice, and I can’t help but think to myself how great a long-distance dedication writer I would have been. So I think it’s about time I lived out my dream. Let’s see …

“Today’s long-distance dedication comes to us from a shy 21-year-old girl in the tiny town of Pahrump, Nevada. She writes, ‘Casey, I have a problem. I’m in love with a guy that I can’t be with. We met three years ago when I was a senior in high school and our school hired him to be our janitor. Mike is his name and mopping is his game. He could remove gum from the floor like nobody’s business.

“One night after drama class, he was cleaning the stalls in the ladies’ bathroom and we started talking. It turns out he had dreams of one day owning a McDonald’s, just like me. He was short, kind of ugly, and smelled of bleach, but I slowly fell in love with the guy wearing the rubber gloves anyway. Everything was going great until January of this year, when Mike accidentally ran over a family of ducks with his tractor. He was given three years in prison for his crime.

“I visit him every week despite protests from my family and friends. Even though he told me before he left that fateful morning that he really hated ducks, I know he didn’t mean to hit more than one of them. I just want to let Mike know that I love him and that I will wait for him to be released. Would you please play Rick Dees’ ‘Disco Duck’ for the love of my life and let him know that I miss him every day? Sincerely, Tabitha.”

What do you think? That would have made it on the air, right?

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