Math Word Problem:Lawyers as Water:Oil

I recently received an email challenging "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" I am assuming it is inspired by the TV show. Included in the email was the following math problem:

>> There are 7 girls in a bus
> Each girl has 7 backpacks
> In each backpack, there are 7 big cats
> For every big cat there are 7 little cats
> Question: How many legs are there in the bus?
>> This is a real math problem so don't say that a bus has no legs.

So I consider myself to be good at math, but this question baffled me. My issue with answering this question was that all my years of legal training made it so that I contemplate the true meaning of every word. The "problem" with this question is that it left too much room for interpretation and left unanswered questions. Did all the girls have both legs? Did the girls have their backpacks with them? Was this some sort of trick question? The last statement says that "this is a real math problem" so does that mean there aren't any tricks? How am I supposed to answer this question when I can't figure out exactly what it is asking?

My first instinct was that the answer was 14 because there is no mentioning that the children have their backpacks with them. I wasn't mean enough to amputate anyone. When I found this was the wrong answer, I figured that I need to stop analyzing the question and just do to math.

Because I had such a grand time with the problem, I decided to forward it to people I know, including other lawyers. I found out that they too had problems because they were asking the same questions I was, plus a few more.

That's when it hit me. Lawyers, we are one messed up group of people who over analyze.