We'd love to help you out, but there are three requirements.

1. You've got to be timely.
Our electronic fulfillment form quickly and efficiently zaps your information to the Morning Show request clearinghouse, where it is lovingly embossed on heavy paper. It is then bundled with other requests for the same calendar day and shipped overland to the Morning Show Request Bindery, where a leather-bound booklet is produced. The booklet is wrapped in silk, tied with a red ribbon and flown third class to the radio station.

At 10:30 in the morning, two days before broadcast, Jim Ed opens the request packet as he enjoys his daily ration of Chicken with Ginger and Ants Climbing A Tree.

The limitations of this procedure require you to have your request to us five calendar days before broadcast. Please leave time for our process to work! We have always done it like this, and we don't know any other way.

2. You've got to be lucky.
With so many identical leather bound booklets flooding the office (a new one every day), we sometimes misplace them and become confused. Do not allow the success of any family celebrations or personal relationships to hinge on our successful execution of your on-air dedication.

3. Be brief.
We have our own lives to live.

If you're willing to take a chance making a request under these extremely unreasonable conditions, lay it on us.

Then tune in to MPR's classical music stations or listen online to Live MPR between 6 and 9 a.m. on weekdays, and cross your fingers.