An old friend and colleague from my working days rang me up today to ask me for something that I thought was not quite right for me to do. I told him that he should ask someone else more qualified and worthy than I. He however insisted that I help him.
During the conversation, his leitmotif was that he had always looked up to me and hence he wanted me to undertake the task. That more or less settled the matter as I was touched and flattered at the same time.
Let us not go into the task but what amused me was that literally, he is at least four inches taller than I am. Quite how he could have looked up to me beats me!
Some figures of speech really can be confusing when taken literally.