There is a place where words mean what they mean. It is a secret place where only an overly colloquial few go. It's inhabited by 20-something, sorority girls, reality show stars, and impatient pre-teens who, trying desperately to force maturity, imitate the vernaculars of 20-something, sorority girls and reality show starts. In this place, simile and metaphors yield to unrestrained hyperbole, and everything is exactly as it is described. This, is the Land Of The Literal.
Citizens hereof have astounding eating and sleeping habits. They will often eat entire horses for lunch after skipping breakfast, and may sleep for 1,000 hours in a single night. Further, they'll keel over dead upon hearing some unpleasant news. Literally. Not unlike us, the citizens of the Land Of The Literal have jobs and go to school, but every class they take is literally the hardest class anyone has ever taken. Ever. Likewise, it is not uncommon for a single work week of theirs to last for 3 years. It's a tough life for these folks. If one should be unlucky enough to stub their toe on their bedpost on their way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, it will be undisputedly the worst pain of their entire life. Then they'll awake to an actual mountain of dirty dishes in their kitchen sink. (They have bigger sinks there.)
But this land of extremity is not all bad. Many of their pleasures are described as much better than any of us normal people could ever hope to experience. The dogs in the parks there are the cutest things that have ever been born in history, and each cupcake they eat is the best cupcake in the whole, wide world--which is good because if they didn't eat something soon, they would've literally starved to death. But a warning to any who might wish to immigrate to The Land Of The Literal: you have to be careful in your indulgence, for after eating birthday cake and a hamburger in the same night, you could gain, literally, 100 pounds, which you will proclaim the next day along with your newly appointed title of "Most Bloated Girl on the Face of the Earth."
These people live among us--we hear them brag and complain everyday--but they experience things at such extremes that they're really in a different world altogether. How else could two people see the same movie as one another, but one is literally the funniest movie that anyone has ever seen? Unless there is a gross, daily misuse of the word... But that can't be the case, right?