I first noticed this phenomenon many years ago. It was a conversation with my nephew, and it went like this:

"How old are you?"
"I'm gonna be 7."
"You're gonna be 40. How old are you now?"

I'm struggling to figure out why it is that people, particularly kids, find themselves utterly unable to answer simple questions. These days, with my stepdaughters, the conversations usually go something like this:

"Have you done your school project?"
"It's not due until next week."
"Oh. I see. So... Have you done your school project?"

The answer is related to the question I asked, but it's actually the answer to a different question. I think it has to do with a desire to save time. When I asked the kid how old he was, he must have figured I was more interested in his next birthday than with his current age, so he skipped to the next question. And the girls must figure it's easier to tell me why their homework isn't done than it is to just say no, seeing as my next question will be "Why not?"

Why do people do that? It's not just kids, either. My wife does it all the time, and I'm sure I do, too.

"Are you hungry?"
"What's for dinner?"

See, the answer is related to the question I asked, but it's not an answer. Would you be hungry if I made pork chops but not hungry if I made liver? No, that's not how hunger works.

I wonder if life would be more interesting if we ran things a little more like a courtroom. That way, whenever someone failed to answer a simple question, someone else could jump up and say "Objection! Non-responsive." They do that in court. Then the judge gets to decide whether the response really answered the question. The judge can tell the witness to give a more direct answer. That might be cool.

Then again, it won't work, because I'd never get to be the judge. So I'd never win. And I'd never find out whether anyone wants dinner.