A couple, a few, several, some, what do those terms mean? The carpenter knows what he's doing, but he doesn't know precisely how many nails he'll need. Meanwhile, the assistant wants a number because he has no clue what those terms mean. I always considered "a couple" to be two, "several" to be three, and "a few" to be however many nails you can pick up easily with one hand. Your mileage may vary. However, when I'm writing a blog post, I use "quite a few" when I have no idea what the actual number is. This is the newest comic from Chris Hallbeck at Maximumble.
Couple – 2 to 4
Few – 3 to 5
Several – 3 to 9