What jokes have you taken literally?

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Not just jokes, but idioms, proverbs, short stories, child's songs, poems, anecdotes...anything. I would love to read your stories.

Do you like to point out logical fallacies in things and annoy NTs? Have you had any comic experiences where someone tried to explain something you took literally?

This one stumped me for more than two years because I wouldn't ask anyone to explain it to me....

A man was walking down the street...he meets another man who says...
"I just saw a man eating shark at the aquarium"
The first man replies, "so what? I just saw a man eating tuna at the deli."

As I said...it took me years....and then when I finally got it...I was rolling on the floor. It's still one of my favourite jokes.

I love puns. I also hear things incorrectly all the time, and don't wonder why they're odd....I assume they are correct until someone points out that I've repeated the incorrect words that I've heard...broken telephone. It's resulted in some funny situations...eventually.

Constantly, although i do generally understand the idea behind the joke/proverb/whatever i cant stand it when they make no sense. I annoy people by pointing out the problems with them from time to time. =/

"The world is just like that" or "That's just how the world works, we cant change it" when referring to something that has NOTHING at all to do with the world but people instead. Two faced politicians have nothing to do with the 'world' that is society and humanity.

"Like sucks" "That's life for you" etc when again it has nothing to do with any property of life but instead is a problem caused by humans.

Whenever someone calls someone that lies,cheats,is cruel etc a snake. I have yet to be cheated,lied to,taken advantage of, harassed or anything else by any snake. In fact at least most snakes probably lack the required brain facilities for cruelty,intentional deceit, etc.

"Science is a religion" If one more person says that to me and is unable to define religion or science, my head may explode.

Most Idioms I know are in danish, and as part of the definition I can't really explain them, but let me try anyway:

To speak about your sick aunt. This apparently means to make excuses for yourself... that took me a while to wrap my head around.

I (Almost) always catch jokes, but every now and then they slip past me (When I am not expecting jokes mostly) At the hairdresser, my mother and I were both getting a haircut. I was finished first and said; "Do you want me to waite for you to be finished, or should I get going home?" my mother replied "Just go, it will be to boring for you to just sit around waiting" Then the hairdresser said "Well we will just have to put him to work so he won't get bored"
That caught me off guard, I had time to go through all the things she could possibly put me at work with before I realised that she was ofcourse joking.

So might you be so nice as to explain this joke to me? I'm not sure if I get it

Speaking of fish and jokes I didn't understand at some point, I recall such a one: A blind man enters the doors of fishmonger's place and says:"Hi, girls"

Hmmm...My guess would be: eating tuna at the deli is dangerous as in health hazard.

Read "a man eating shark" as "a man who was eating shark", and you'll probably get it.

I, on the other hand, don't get the fishmonger joke.

i get most humour except for sarcasm.>->

Even though I'm not famous for a sense of humor, I sniggered having heard the explanation

As for the joke posted by me, it's squicky and refers to the fact that private parts of female anatomy are claimed to excrete fish smell if a woman doesn't take care of their hygiene. The blind man thought there were such women in the shop.

april fool jokes , hate that day

i think i have a pretty good sense of humor, i don't get the shark joke .. when i was 10 i remember my mother telling me that someone's car needed to get towed to the garage to get fixed, and i remember thinking, why would anyone try to pull a car with their toes all the way across town?? i was very confused. when i asked my question i was laughed at, so i didn't ask so many question anymore. not a good joke example, but i did take a lot of things literally. sometimes i still do .. very embarrassing.

There are many things, which I did not understand. Mostly idiomatic expressions in German (I sometimes feel more confident in English, because I can look things up for English and not get strange looks). 'to come too short' (zu kurz kommen) in German apparently means not to get the fair share and I learned about that in Gymnasium. Also, my father has the horrible habit of using things sarcastically if he is angry. I always thought 'Schon dich!' was one of the most drastic things, you can say to a person so s/he starts working. I only learned it when I told my grandparents what horrible things my father told my mother...

Last Friday I was at one of those Japanese steakhouses where they cook the food on a large grill right in front of you. They also tell jokes, and do tricks while they're cooking. Right before the cook lit the grill with a big flame he asked if anyone was wearing hairspray. I took him seriously, and moved away from the table, kinda freaking out. My husband grabbed me by the arm, and whispered "he's just kidding honey." I was so embarrassed.

I always ask questions about things and people think im joking and they laugh at me and I have to say no, im serious, what is it or what does it mean, it drives me crazy.
What have I taken seriously...a lot of films i've asked if its a true story and funny, funny people have said yes and I believed them not picking up on their sarcasm. I've learnt sarcasm now although I can really only use extreme sarcasm.
I can't really think of any examples at the second although I did not get either joke. My joke skills are appalling, my very favourite, probably because I got it almost straight away is-

What did the cross eyed teacher say?
I can't control my pupils!

I have a friend who is always saying things that are absurd and thus obviously jokes. That is, they are that way to HIM. I almost always have to ask, "Are you joking? You're joking, right?" And sometimes he messes me about a bit (that's okay, as long as he stops when I tell him it's really serious) and says yes, no, yes... and I have to go, "No, you have to tell me seriously now, I don't get it. Is it a joke?" Then I get my answer (and he's nice and explains why).

Edit: I just remembered a conversation I had with the girls next door [ages 11, 11, 11 and 14] yesterday. They wanted to show me some episodes of a funny cartoon they had found on YouTube. Then they hesitated and one said, "Well, WE think it's funny. You're probably just going to point out all the reasons why it isn't funny or doesn't make sense. But let's watch it anyway," and another one said, "You'll probably think it's weird."
I laughed at the show and didn't say anything. It WAS weird. But I never realized until then that I came off this way with humor. I didn't know that was a problem I had.

We used to have a hatch back car when I grew up. Dad would tell me to "watch your head" when he was ready to close the hatch.

One day in a parking lot I finally errupted and said, "I can't watch my head. My eyes are on my head!"

There are probably lots of other things I took literally.