I think I've figured out how to get rich. Now all I need is a financial backer and I'll be on easy street.

My main fear is that someone already has patented my idea, which is simple and logical. You see, I noticed long ago that every car and SUV has cup holders, but that they're not very helpful. What I've wanted is a cup holder with a temperature control -- a receptacle that would warm my coffee and also chill my cold drinks. I mentioned this to several car salesmen, who looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.

Well, I recently noticed advertisements about a vehicle that has a built-in refrigerator. So, who's crazy now?

But my idea goes far beyond that. What I really envision is equipping every tractor and combine cab with a food unit. This would include a small microwave for heating those instant dinners that are so highly advertised, along with a refrigerator for cold drinks and snacks. Alongside this compact unit I would install a coffeemaker.

Don't laugh. If farmers can afford Global Positioning Satellite hookups for steering their machinery, they can find the money for the Miller Snack Unit (MSU) in a back corner of their tractor and combine cabs. But that's just the beginning.

When my invention takes off, just think of the other equipment that would need an MSU! Every driver of a bulldozer, or a backhoe, or a crane, or a huge earth-moving scraper would find that they couldn't live without my invention. This would be a boon for construction companies.

The benefits are staggering. Equipped with my MSU contraption, farm wives would be freed from the never-ending task of cooking and hauling dinner and supper to the field. This not only would free the ladies from cooking these meals, but they wouldn't have to call hubby on the cell phone to figure out which field he was discing or drilling. And they wouldn't waste gas or time delivering food.

This would free the men from halting work to visit the local cafe or quick-stop. They could work all the time. (Which might not be a selling point to everyone.)

Of course, financing is a problem. I've read that credit is tight right now, and I would need quite a pile of money. First, of course, would be the engineers who designed the MSU and equipped it with automatic timers, reservoirs for water and cold drinks, and the proper software to operate the contraption.

Then, naturally, I would need factories with robots and real live workers. Most crucial would be a marketing force, because I'd need lots of advertising and sales people to convince the working world that they desperately needed their own personal MSU's.

Maybe I'd be eligible for some of that stimulus money, because it's obvious that my idea would contribute thousands of jobs to the American economy.

After I work out these minor details, all I have to do is hire an accounting department to keep track of the profits, while I sat back and issue million-dollar bonuses to myself for doing nothing.

Being patriotic and stubborn, I would refuse to outsource any of the manufacturing to Asia or the Third World, so my MSU would be Kansas-made. Rural Kansas needs jobs much worse than Asia does.

I could be wrong. Just last year, I suggested that we eliminate the opium problem by spraying all of the poppy fields in Afghanistan with Roundup. So far, no one has paid any attention to that idea.

But I'm more hopeful about my snack unit. I figured, using my Big Chief tablet and a lead pencil, that each unit should sell for $2,599.99. But I foresee one problem. Looking at the condition of world trade in today's free marketing system, I'm afraid that some Chinese company will steal my idea.

Then you'll see it advertised on TV for $19.95 ... and there goes my bonus.

Darrel Miller lives near Downs in rural Osborne County and is a retired weekly newspaper editor.