broken ashtray

[treed2 at wsu.edu (treed2@wsu.edu)]

Over the years I've been thoughtlessly emptying my pockets of spare change
by dumping it the ashtray. Several pounds of coins accumulated in this
way. Recently when I hit a speed bump particularly hard it exploded,
rather comically sending loose change everywhere! It was kind of like a
grenade; luckily no one was hurt. I just had to spend 20 minutes picking
up quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies.

The door is partially broken off (one hinge is still hanging on) but i
managed to pin it back together using a drill and a small nail.

>From now on I'm not putting any more change in there, but I need some
(clever?) ideas about what to do. I could spend $5 replacing the ash tray
with a used one, or I could:

- install triple vdo gauges (too expensive at ~$50 a gauge plus senders)
- glue the door permanently shut so that the ashtray is only 'decorative'
- rework the hinges to open the ashtray door gullwing-style
- turn it in to a "detactable face" ashtray
- install an in-dash aquarium in its place
- build a miniature diorama complete with tiny plastic figurines
- ???

I'm open for ideas, people.

-Toby