Free Flu Shots

Driving past my corner drugstore the other day, I noticed banners and balloons advertising a “Free Flu Vaccine”! Since everybody knows that the flu shot prevents the flu, I began to wonder, what other products that are known to prevent supposedly undesirable conditions are given away for free.

I mean, if the flu shots are so darn good, shouldn’t they fetch a pretty price? Cancers are very undesirable, but no one I’ve found is giving away free chemotherapy or radiation. Obesity is undesirable, but Weight Watchers doesn’t offer its products for free. In fact, quite the opposite–their products are believed to be so effective that customers should be lining up to pay the asking price.

In most areas of commerce, free things are usually worth every penny of their price. You know, like the old saying, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If someone offers me a free watch, I start to wonder whether it even works.

Maybe that’s the answer.