Examples of Taking Things Literally

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As far as the tomorrow question goes, I think he must have meant, tomorrow I will be able to set up that shadowing experience. Not that I will be able to set it up for tomorrow. It's a word order thing, I think.

My son has a big problem with sarcasm, dry wit, and literalism. His PE teacher said at the end of the school year that by standards, second graders should be able to jump rope for a full minute by the end of the school year. So, he said jokingly, we better get practicing so you can go on to third grade ha ha! Well my son was in hysterics because he can't skip rope for more than two times in a row. He took it totally literally that he HAD to jump rope for a full minute straight or else he couldn't pass the grade. He also would not take my word for it. The coach had to sit and talk with him. Poor sweet kid. I him!

I'm not exactly literal minded, I consider myself very specific. By that I mean that I usually know what people mean when they use abstract language but when someone is talking about a movie ( lets say Casablanca for example), and they say that it came out "sometime in the 40's" I always feel compelled to be more specific for them, often going down to the day and month. Is anyone else like that?

When someone tells me to "try" a math problem, I occasionally eat the paper. Get it?

When I was in elementary school, when someone told me to "knock it off", I'd knock the books off my desk.

As a child, I sometimes stole things from the other children.
I took things literally.

A lady once stopped me on the street and asked me what was the quickest way to get to town.
I said, "Walk quicker."

^ Oh, and then there was the one where the guys at work would say, "I'm hanging out for a piss." And I literally thought they were going to hang their penis out and urinate right there. They couldn't understand why I kept walking off.

When I was about 10 my family was getting ready to go on a picnic at a lake with neighbors.
The neighbor was on his porch doing something and I was standing near his car and the trunk was open.
He called to me to bring him the box that was in the trunk.
I looked in the trunk and didn't see a box. All that was in there was a picnic basket.
He kept saying over and over "the box, the box" but I didn't know what to do because there was no box.
Finely I heard him murmur "stupid kid" and he came over and took the picnic basket.
Then I realized he was calling the picnic basket a box. I think he was stupid.