My Visit To Neptune

"If you've heard this story before, don't stop me,
because I'd like to hear it again." Groucho Marx

Lately, I feel like I've told the same stories to the same wonderful people at least 182 times, and all of them are too kind and tolerant to point it out to me.  Somehow they seem to understand that the SJG Brain, currently under investigation for violating Federal Sanity Codes, can only remember so much on any given crappola day. Or, these wonderful people are using valuable cell phone minutes to do other things while I gab on on on.  This is why Face Time is a bad idea.  Better not to know what the person on the other end is doing.  Dozing off, for instance.  Or rolling their eyes while you launch into the same story.  Again.  "Did I tell you about my visit to Neptune?" I asked my close friend Dan.  "No," he said, politely.  Either he wasn't aware that the SJG has a fondness for space travel, or he was just too menschy and well-bred to say any of the following:

a) Oh, dear God, not the Neptune story again.
b) I beg you to stop repeating yourself.
c) I'm hanging up now.

Now then. This story which some of you have already heard isn't about the planet Neptune.  It's about the Society. Both my parents wished to be scattered upon the sea and signed up for the honor in 1997.  And I had the honor of going to the dimly-lit, vaguely funereal Sherman Oaks headquarters to sign a few hundred forms.  I'm not trying to make you jealous, but these are the fun things I get to do at this moment in time. Out of curiosity, I asked the lady who smelled like cough drops how much this whole thing costs.  Not that I had to pay.  It was already taken care of "pre-need."  She revealed the price tag and told me my dearly departed daddy had signed up for the "travel package."  Well, you know me too well.  I started to laugh, which is better than weeping profusely.  "Go on," I said, wondering what sort of postmortem travel was promised, and why my parents got talked into purchasing it. In case you'd like to sign up... if you plotz anywhere in the world, the nice Neptune people will come and fetch you.  For a fee, anything is possible. My parents must have anticipated plotzing in some exotic locale, or on safari or while climbing the Alps. Two years later, my mom's passport got stamped from Beyond.  (I refer you to the oft-mentioned family credo:  Life is Life.) And yet, I applaud their adventurous spirit. Thus ends my Neptune story. If I regale you with it at a later date, don't stop me, I'd like to hear it again.