Does that horse look like a llama?

We went to the little place five minutes from work for lunch today. It was the FIRST sunny and relatively warm day in quite a while so we were going to sit outside. We reserved our place with a hat and some papers and continued to walk into the shop to order lunch. As we passed two young girls at the next table, one of them sort of commented–sort of asked–with her head tilted to the side:

Girl: Does that horse look like a llama?

Me: Umm. I believe it is a llama.

Stephen: Well, if it is a horse, it’s doing an awfully good impression of a llama.

(tinkling laughter)

Girl: Oh. Ok. Thanks. Are they all llamas? (motioning to the rest of the animals underneath the tree)

Stephen: Umm. Well. I think the rest are just dogs… doing really good impressions of sheep.

Oh dear. We started laughing so hard and had to duck into the restaurant so they wouldn’t see us. Don’t laugh, I said. Give them credit for knowing about llamas. (Because I believed the question was innocent enough–if you’ve never seen a llama.)

The real question is: If you know what a llama looks like, why couldn’t it just have been a llama? Why did you think that it was a horse—that looked like a llama? Really.