A couple of nights ago I went to Longs Drugs for some Ibuprofen. I have an injured [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhomboid_major_muscle]rhomboid muscle[/url] that has been bothering me quite a bit lately due to excessive upside down pole dancing. I have been taking Ibuprofen to help me sleep and help me keep teaching. (But I promise that I have not been doing the pole trick which caused the injury in the first place).

Anyway, here’s the weird thing. I was looking at all the generic Longs Ibuprofen and noticed that all the same exact products had different costs. The generic Ibuprofen that was displayed next to the Advil cost more than the one displayed next to the Motrin. I stood there puzzled by this idea. I checked the quantity in the bottle, but no, they all held 50 200mg tablets.

Take a look:

They spent the time to make blue packaging to match the Advil package and orange packaging to match the Motrin package. Now, doesn’t it seem silly that Longs Drugs takes that much time and packaging effort for their generic drugs? And why the jump from $4.39 to $4.79?

After ruminating on this for a bit and being told I was not allowed to take pictures in the store, I purchased the orange box of generic Ibuprofen for $4.39 and it works just fine…