My mom taught me to tune women out entirely. This got me through my teen years relatively sane, but when I started dating women, it became a bit of an issue. And when I started working for 'em, it became life threatening.
"John, did you reorganize the requests?"
"Why would I have done that?"
"Because I asked you to yesterday."
"You most certainly did not."
"God! Yes I did! And you nodded and 'uh-huhed' me the whole time, and then when I asked, you repeated it all back to me."
"That doesn't sound familiar."
When I found this conversation recurring, of course, I saved my career (and doomed my relationships) by learning to listen to women. The only artifact of my onetime disability is if a woman, probably Dorkass, begins a sentence with "You know what your problem is?" Bam. My brain hits the kill switch on my ears. You could hold a $1000 bill in front of my face, and I wouldn't be able to repeat what followed "is."