Literal thinking

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What are some questions or sarcastic remarks you took to literally and totally missed the boat??

Someone once told me that I was wanting to have my cake and eat it too. I did not understand this at all. One would have to have their cake in order to eat it wouldn't they? They looked at me like I was crazy.
Someone else explained what it meant but every time I hear someone say it I always remember this story.

Had a boss hand me a stack of brochures and say "cut these in half and put them in [some location]." I about reached for the scissors, but luckily realized she meant to divide it into two stacks. Happens all too often, mostly with work instructions. People should be more literal if you ask me.

The whole book is about Sherlock Holmes

I didn't get this until now...I had to look it up. Previously I thought it meant something like "you want to have a cake of your own and get to eat it" and I thought the meaning of this was basically "you want something that might be fairly reasonable, but people are acting like it's a big fuss and that you're being selfish, and maybe it is, because having and eating a cake of your own is a self-indulgent thing"... ...I always got the "gist" of what it was but didn't understand that it literally means, you want something that is physically and logically impossible!

I didn't miss the boat, but I was being snarky with my mother. She would get mad and say "I'm gonna spank your pants". So one time, I got a pair of pants out of my dresser while she got the paddle. Needless to say, she was furious, and I told her, "you said that you were going to spank my pants, so I laid them out here for you to spank".

Nowadays, I might not be literal enough; I am always trying to figure true meaning behind someone's words. My nephews are all very literal, so I have to be careful to not use too much abstract speech.