Did you say free?

In a home with three children, it's usually one of the younger members of our family who is tugging on his ear, crying in the middle of the night and begging for Tylenol because he has an ear infection. That doesn't usually happen to the mom.

So after two weeks of denial and trying to will my inner ear to stop aching, I was a little beyond crabby when I finally went to the doctor today and got a prescription for Amoxicillin.

Ms. Grumpy turned to Ms. Happy when I dropped the little white form off at the pharmacy at Meijer before grabbing some groceries.

"This is included in our free antibiotic program," the pharmacist said. "You don't owe us anything."

I'm sorry. I have some fluid in my ears. "Did you say free?"

Yep.

I had seen the advertisements in the store for free antibiotics.

I assumed they meant "free" as in "free with $100 worth of groceries". Or maybe "free with 10 pounds of hamburger and 6 pounds of bananas". Or perhaps "free to the first 10 people who enter the store before 6 a.m. on Saturday."

That kind of free?

Nope.

The grocery store chain offers for free the leading oral generic antibiotics with a special focus on prescriptions more often filled for children. From a marketing standpoint, it has to be a great way to get families to bring their prescriptions to the store, and purchase those more expensive medicines while they are there.

"You owe $0.00."

Hmm.

Music to my ears.