so my new thing is just to write in one direction: forward

I'm sure it happens to everyone. Someone will be telling you a story, sincerely believing it is the first time you have heard it, but it isn't. The person probably started the story with the non-question "have I told you before how..." and then proceed to segue immediately into the story. You are left with two choices: forcefully push your way to the front of the conversation in an effort to beat them to the punchline and to affirm that yes, you had been told this before ("...AND THEN YOU SAW NICK LACHEY, RIGHT?") or just nod along until the ride is done ("oh, wow, haha."). Then, sometimes, the teller will realize you had in fact been told this before, and may ask "oh why didn't you stop me?" Why, indeed. 

Worse, though, is my paranoia in the other direction. I attempt to qualify it. "I was telling my friend...," I'll start a story, so as to open the possibility that you are the friend to whom I was telling it, or, at the very least, it is a story that I have told at least once lest the guise of it being an original and spontaneous telling be disproved. I've found, though, that people often just don't listen to me anyway. "Did you hear," someone will say to me, "that this thing happened."

Yes, I did. I told you that!

I am reasonably sure the sound of my voice is refrigerator-buzz-offensive, in that, eventually, you forget it is even on--constant and irritating but still relatively easy to tune out. When it stops, things seem odd, but nothing has changed in your life except that your yogurt may no longer be fresh.

Still, I enjoy using this to my advantage. There will be many times when engaged in conversation that I'll determine that the person is not really listening and I do not care and certainly do not want to talk any more. So, I'll throw together some nonsense phrases that the person will interpret however they wanted to anyway.

Recent work example:
Teen: Hey, I wanted to check my facebook so my girlfriend something about soccer something about my iPhone over the wifi for something facebook something. 
Jesse: Oh. the wifi?
Teen: Yeah, they said that I could use the wifi on my break at that one building but this other building has a password and I wanted to check it here.
Jesse: Oh, well, web blocker, work internet personal internet web key shared connection internet wifi.
Teen: Oh, well, I'll just check it tomorrow.

Success!

I've found that a surprisingly small number of people question nonsense. Especially monotone, long-winded nonsense that sounds like short sentences. Try it out. I am curious if it works for other people, or if my voice is prohibitively offensive so as to discount all of its content.

Speaking of my voice, I am always shocked by the number of teens who, upon meeting me, are incapable of recognizing my voice as the one that talked to them on the phone just days earlier.

Teen: Yeah, I talked to this guy on the phone who said to bring my paperwork.
Jesse: That was me! You talked to me!

I mean, I really do believe I have a distinctive voice in the sense that if Truman Capote and Fran Drescher had a voice baby, it would still be annoyed by my mine. It may just be that teens are dumb.

Teen: Yeah, I talked to this guy at my school who said to come.
Jesse: That was me! You met me!

Who knows? Did you even read this, or was it said in my voice. Because if it was, chances are, you won't remember it in a couple of hours anyway. 

Or better yet, I've already told you.