Here's a thing humans do: They knew what they meant, but saw an amusing way it could be parsed, and said that, because it's amusing. We all knew what the comment really meant.
There's actually a few ways it could have been meant, or it could have been meant to convey all of them. We all have a pretty good idea in the general sense what they meant, but that amusing reply is also an invitation for the person to elaborate and add nuance.