The first is that I cannot sit through a certain kind of answer anymore.

There is a thing witnesses say.

They say: I’m absolutely certain. Or: I remember it perfectly. Or: I’ll never forget it.

I have taken that down, I would estimate, several thousand times in sixteen years, and it used to mean nothing to me.

It was a noise a person makes before the content.

In the April of 2024 I was reporting an arbitration — a commercial matter, nothing to do with anything, two companies and a warehouse lease — and a man in his sixties said, “I remember that meeting perfectly, it’s not the kind of thing you forget,” and I had to stop the proceeding.

You are allowed to do that.