March madness: The burning questions

I have questions. the deeply disturbing philosophical questions that keep one up in the night, imagining peace on earth and the easing of one's troubles.

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Why do shoe departments always arrange the boxes of shoes on the shelf starting with the small sizes on the top and working down to the large sizes at the bottom?

Pam Burke

Pam Burke Wouldn't it be better to put the small shoes lower on the shelf where the short people can reach them, and the larger sizes higher where the tall people don't have to scrunch themselves into a ball to find what they want?

Sure, conditions are perfect for all the medium-height/medium-feet people, but where's that leave the rest of us? Shopping as a tag team sport? The tall person and the short person have to fetch shoes for each other? That sounds like a bad joke: So this giant and a little person go walking into a shoe store one day ... .

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If the opposite of less is more, why isn't the opposite of powerless powermore? And then the opposite of powerful would be powerempty, wouldn't it?

Can't you just hear a superhero and his archenemy arguing over this? The villain's evil laugh bursts forth, then — raising his fists to the darkened sky amid the destruction wrought around him — he cries out: "I am all powerful! Nothing can stop me!"

"Errrm, not true," says some nerdy guy who's struggling to rip his way out of a shamrock green sweater and yellow plaid pants to reveal his blue spandex superhero threads. "I mean, I hate to ruin your day, evil villain — what with you holding a laser beam of death and all — but I can stop you. I'm, y'know, powermore."

"Powermore? Never heard of it. It doesn't exist. I am powerful, which literally translates to full of power, and full is an absolute. There is no fuller than full because full is the utmost capacity, and things are either full or they're not. Me? I'm powerful — to the top. That means you, puny man, are powerless compared to me."

"Yeah, well, that's my point, dude. If there's a powerless, then there's a powermore, and that's me, sooo, even if you're full of power just like you said, it doesn't matter because I have more power. Powermore beats you every time."

"No! I am all powerful!"

"I'm powermore."

"PowerFUL!"

"More."

"FULL!"

"Still more. And I'll turn your powerful into powerempty ... as soon as I get my cape secured."

"That's not a cape, moron. It's just your sweater tied around your neck with a granny knot in the sleeves."

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And what's with moral support?

Sure, you might experience a time when someone says: "I'm gonna kill him!" To which you would most likely feel obliged to say: "Um, don't do that. Killing is wrong, and it's messy on my clean floors."

That demonstrates support of a moral, two biblical ones actually: that whole shall not kill commandment and the thing about cleanliness and godliness. And good on ya, for taking the high road there.

But most of the time the support people need isn't that drastic. People generally just need a pat on the back, some hand holding, nose wiping, maybe a little cheering on, and their morals are perfectly fine. So if there's no killing, maiming, stealing, cheating or ethical transgressions of any kind, isn't it really morale support?

Shouldn't we be saying: "Thanks for coming along; I really needed the morale support"?

I think we don't because our tongues are too lazy.

The difference between the two words is just a little E on the end, but say it along with me: moral ... morale. Moral, moral, moral. Morale, morale, morale.

Yeah, you know I'm right.