Literally nobody takes "literally" literally

We looked up this controversy in some online dictionaries, where the consensus was that "literally" is conventionally used as an intensifier. The implication is that anyone who responds as rat does in the cartoon above is being churlish.
Just for fun, and to confirm that this is a modern deviation from the norm, I pulled my compact OED from the shelf and was surprised to find the following: 

"Now often improperly used to indicate that some conventional or hyperbolical phrase is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense." 

The OED cites a quote from 1863: "For the last four years... I literally coined money."