"I Was Raised Literalist."

 Last week, Janet Reid gave her readers a quiz. She acknowledged that all offered answer choices were incorrect - but the idea was to choose the least-wrong answer, and to state why.

This turns out to be a surprisingly difficult proposition for many. For me, it was impossible:

(Edited for clarity)

In kindergarten, they gave us an aptitude test in which one of the questions was, "If a white cow gives regular milk, and a brown cow gives chocolate milk, does a pink cow give strawberry milk?" I toddled to the front of the room and explained to the teacher that I COULD NOT COMPLETE the question, persistent in my attempt to impart to her the knowledge, "There are no pink cows!" She kept trying to insist I answer the question on its own terms. I could not come to such terms, I was raised literalist.

This quiz has me sitting, paralyzed, in my little orange plastic chair, peering in squinting turns at the purple mimeograph ink before me, and at Mizz Reid, unable to explain to her the quiz is impossible to deal with, and dreaming wistfully of pink cows.

Image: Janet did it!!

Janet seems to have enjoyed this story (though, again, it needed editing!), and quoted it in her Week in Review post on Sunday. Aww!

Amusingly (to me, anyway), this post got some attention this week. It is much the same story, in a way (and as much in need of editing), but ends with a good point and question.

I may not be able to cope with the concept of an imaginary bovine, but I seem to have a smidge of imagination anyway.