I decided to dig through the archives for this and couldn't find it. Luckily someone lifted it and I found it in "The Outhouse" on rootsweb but it is really our magnum opus. They dressed it up and removed all the contributors names which are some of ya'll old timers like me. I almost didn't recognize it. We had a lot of fun compiling this list. Might be fun to make it "101 uses for a Casket". If you want to send me your additions privately I will compile them and post the completed list. It all started when someone posted the ad below and it took root in our furtile, skewed minds. Enjoy! --Debbie M, Texas _____ Buy a casket for up to 75%less than the price charged by funeral homes, with delivery anywhere at any time and a choice of 40 styles. The deal offered by Direct Casket started after the Federal Trade Commission told America's 23,000 funeral homes several years ago that they had to accept caskets purchased elsewhere and couldn't charge a handling fee for doing so. Caskets sold directly to Consumers. 1-800-73-CASKET HOW ABOUT THAT! HAS ANYONE DONE THIS YET. The following uses for your pre-need coffin/caskets have been suggested!! * I'd love to order mine now at a bargain price but where would I store it? Maybe use it as a coffee table? Or coffin table? * Great idea..... I need a new quilt chest!! * Or maybe put it in the guest room as an extra bed? Would put a lid on overnighters, right? :) Personally I plan to use an ashtray. A nice one, mind you. * Another casket plan: store rakes and shovels in it. Then when you need the casket, you get out the shovels and...well, you get the idea. * Well, lets see..... It's probably bigger than my mobile home, so maybe I could live in it!! Or I bet it's nicer than my car... I know!! I'll put wheels on it and a new motor in it and drive the darn thing... can get dual usage outta it!! * There is a business "Budget Casket" here in the city I live in! They have a huge billboard advertising their product with the line, "People are dying over our prices." A little much for me.... * Sounds like a great gift for the person who has everything..... and if your in their will... they will know just how much you care!! * I think that was sorta the idea but no one stepped forward until you. I am sure that generations of coffinheads and funeral directors will be eternally (notice how certain words take on a whole new meaning when you're discussing coffins?) in your debt. Which is better than us being eternally in THEIR debt for a coffin, right? * With a pad and pillow, in the guest room with a drape over it, for those un(invited/wanted) guests...If they don't object, might want to tape an oaken stake on the cover....? * A spare pantry * What better place to put your collection of dead relatives......a coffin. I guess you could install a 2x4 as a divider for the hanging folders. Are they fireproof?? ....... answer.....They are if you get copper! * A copper casket has a certain ring to it. Yes it does. * I would have to use mine to store candy in at Halloween. Make the little kids reach in to get the goodies. * Make it into a large music box * Bomb shelter * Store your collections in it. You could stand it up and put glass shelves in it to display (Teddy Bears?) <G> My hubby collects coffee mugs so I could put a large mug rack in it. * Make a shadow box or how about use it for a buffet and keep your china and silver in it. * Before we "close the casket" (pardon) - I wanted to mention my casket story: Several years ago, in an antique shop near Prescott, Wis. I saw a beautiful little white children's casket with a glass window to view the child. I was told these were used when the child died of a contagious disease which was common in those days, so the parents might see their beloved child one last time. I have often thought about this little casket with it's carved flowers and wonder if anyone else has ever seen one...........at the time they had several of them that had been found in a storage area of a funeral home that was being torn down. Also, back in the 50's I remembered visiting my Great-Aunts home which was filled with framed photos of family members. When I asked about the photos that were on a table half-hidden behind the door, I was told that that was for the "dead" ones. Perhaps a beautiful casket in place of a table would have been a proper display surface. Thankx..........Dory * One could "ski" behind a boat in it. * Use it for a bass boat and but a Mercury engine on it * The most unusual will I read was Grandma Wade's back in 17.... whatever.... She left provisions for the coffin maker. 1 gallon of rum. Half to be received when the coffin was delivered and half after the funeral. I've also hear the old folks talking about storing the coffin under the bed filling it with straw and storing potatoes and turnips during the winter. * Of course, your bed has to be three or four feet off the floor for the coffin to fit under there, and then of course you have to have an access pulley system to slide it in and out so you can put those taters and turnips in there and get them out, but other than that it should work pretty good. * A subtitle for a list of 101 Things You Can Do With A Coffin......Coffin Drops: A Grave Study of a Deep Subject ? * We're really digging this coffin thing, aren't we? Is anyone keeping a "box score"? (Think about it.....let it sink in......) * Dirt cheap coffins, can you dig it? ....... * Now I don't know that I'm ready to think about buying a pre-used coffin, but putting genealogy files in one's standby coffin would certainly seem appropriate--to one with a truly warped sense of the appropriate like me. * Another way to use a coffin, until it's needed: as a coffee table in the living room or family room. Store emergency supplies in it, so everything will be in one place. Like: radio, batteries, flashlights, extra blankets, canned food, bottled water, paper plates, plastic forks and spoons, first aid kits, etc. * Hmmmmm, sounds like an "earthquake" kit to me! LOL! * Sounds like a "tornado" kit to me. 8-) * I wonder if they appreciate or depreciate in value as time goes on? Maybe depends on if they are precious metal or not eh? * Set it up surrounded by candles- and store all the family valuables in it. No thief would want to look there. Especially if you stick a sign on top........" Dear Sis, Dad doesn't look quite as good as last week- but we did spray for the maggots as requested." * But where does one store the box the coffin came in? Just in case you have to return it for maintenance or sumpin'. * The box my Mother-in-Law's casket came in makes a great storage box for power tools in my shop. Some may think it morbid, but I wasn't going to waste a good box. * Depending on how big a coffin box (a coffin coffin? heh heh! You heard it hear first!) is, you could put several together and make a cardboard high-rise out of it--maybe a vacation home? In Florida? Lake Havasu? The Coast of Maine? Nevada's high desert? Do the coffin coffins come in colors or just vanilla? * A whole new area of pre-need: not only order your casket in advance but fill it with plastic flowers and leaves with instructions on exactly how you want things laid out when you're laid out. And you could also keep your Hallowe'en candies in there, together with Easter eggs and have the kiddies hunting for a haunting experience...... * Keep laughing! You will live longer and delay any need for your coffin table. * If you purchase one for each your kids when they are born you wouldn't need a bassinet, or a playpen. And by the time they get to the age to really need it, it might be a valuable antique. Sell it for a bundle and get a newer model and have enough left to cover funeral expenses. If they get raptured first and don't need it those behind could use it for a number of things. * Put wheels on it and have a Go Kart! * A bit of trivia to think about: Coffins are no longer built for the dead! The person who winds up using the coffin was alive when it was built! * Take a coffin sledding. If you hit a tree, close the lid ; :) * He who buys it, doesn't use it ...... he who uses it, doesn't know it. * Who says.... "You can't take it with you!"..... I'm keeping my genealogy in a coffin and using it as a vertical file cabinet. When I die, I have left instructions for them to dig twice as deep..... my files on bottom...me on top!! For the first time in my life (errrrr) I'll really be on top of (my) things!! * Perhaps that coffin could become part of the seasonal decor...Halloween is almost too easy, of course. The purchase of a manikin would add a lot. Then at Christmas the coffin could be vertical and covered in "brick" crepe paper while the manikin in a Santa suit could be shown filling a sock. * In the midwest, you can use it as an "ARK". Supplies and all. * I collect key chains of all kinds. I have them from several foreign countries and all but seven states. I have about 2500 and they are in groups on bulletin boards all over the house. When my grown children all come home they argue about who has to inherit the key chains. <G> But they all have their favorites and know which ones they want. When I`m gone the kids could put them in my pre need coffin, but they will have to rent a crane to lift the chains and me. * My daughter, of the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle generation, at first thought that the coffin could be used as an extra refrigerator or chest freezer...but then had a better idea..........Let's use old refrigerators and freezers as coffins...what a good recycling plan! * Now that is a cold hearted idea if I ever heard one! * Cool is the word, real chilled out! If you could supply them with electricity, you could save 'em for future generations to thaw out and try to revive. Oh, sorry, someone's already doing that. And just when I thought the pre-need coffin use ideas were all buried....