When it was time to bury her husband, Joan Meister took what many people consider the most prudent approach.

She had Ken cremated.

It costs less, about $600 to $1,000 for the basic urn job. Some say it puts a family and friends through less trauma than a full-blown, open-casket, three-handkerchief wake and funeral.

And you definitely don’t run the risk of bodies being accidentally swapped and burying a stranger, as happened this week at a Chicago funeral home.

One of the decisions that must be made by those who choose cremation is what to do with the ashes.

We occasionally hear about the survivors scattering the ashes from airplanes or bridges, into the sea, or at a favorite fishing spot, golf course or some other location that held significance for the deceased.

I know a man who has asked his wife to place his ashes on the back bar of his favorite tavern so his drinking buddies will not forget him.

But his stern wife dislikes strong drink and instead wants to put his ravaged liver in a jar of embalming fluid and display it in the joint as a warning to others.

They are still negotiating.

In Ken Meister’s case, he wanted his ashes placed in the memorial garden that was planned by his church, the First Presbyterian Church of Arlington Heights, Ill.

But when he died in 1990, the suburban church’s memorial garden was in the planning stage.

“So I had his ashes in our home,” said his wife. “They were given to me in a cardboard box with a plastic liner. I didn’t buy an urn at the time because we knew it would eventually go in the church garden.

“But a couple of years later, my kids wanted closure. They said: ‘C’mon, mom, are you going to leave him here in the house forever?'”

That’s when Joan Meister decided to buy an urn and move Ken’s ashes from the cardboard box in her house to a cemetery.

She picked the nearby Memory Gardens in Arlington Heights.

“I bought two niches. They are stacked on top of each other at the entombment burial place. I bought two, because in the back of my mind, I thought we would be together, even though I knew it would be in the church. It cost $2,000 for the niches.

“I didn’t tell them I’d be moving him. I don’t know why I didn’t. They might have thought it was strange that I waited two years to bury him in the first place.”

But now the church has finished its garden, and Joan Meister has decided that it is time to move Ken’s ashes.

“The church garden is paved with bricks that are engraved,” she said. “There is shrubbery, flowers, wrought-iron benches. It’s closed, and there is no outside access. At the end, there’s a wall, and that’s where the ashes are placed. It’s very beautiful and peaceful.”

She called the original funeral director about having Ken’s ashes moved. “He told me that it would cost $690. He sounded embarrassed. I asked him why it would cost that much, and he said he didn’t know.

“So I called the cemetery and identified myself. They said, ‘We know who you are,’ and referred me to a counselor. He told me it would cost $690 to open and close the niche. And then more to replace the marble front.

“He was very snippy. He said it was for the opening and closing, and there is paperwork to fill out.

“I asked him how he could justify that fee, and he said that’s the fee and that’s it. He was yelling.

“And he said if I planned on selling the niches, it will cost several hundred more to put a new stone front on Ken’s.”

That’s when Joan Meister called here to ask why she was being charged so much just to carry off an urn of her husband’s ashes.

So we called Memory Gardens, and Bill Byrne, a cemetery director, said: “There is a lot of documentation, physical labor and resealing the niche.

“The physical labor is taking the front off the niche, taking off the partition behind the front, the cremains are removed. Then the niche is put back the way it was.”

Maybe. But it doesn’t sound exactly like Igor digging something up for Doc Frankenstein.

But Bill Byrne said: “If you check around Chicago, you would find it’s pretty standard for the total cost.”

So we did. And we found that most cemeteries we called quoted a figure that was only a fraction of $690.

What all this tells me is that my frugal approach to this problem is probably the best.

I have told the blond that she should just stuff me in a Hefty Bag and put me out at the curb when the Sanitation Department does its special pickups.

Maybe with a note on the bag that says: “Don’t recycle.”

The blond has only one question: “Must I wait until you’re gone or can I do it when you are snoring too loud?”

Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune.