INVENTORY:

1 — "You asked at one," / "Confirming," (lines 3–7) — mechanism: deadpan repetition exposed by a flat witness — source: character (Theo's double-checking; the kid's refusal to flatter it) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (lunch-walked route, Thursday closing hours) — dramatic work: establishes over-management as the chapter's pressure before the cohort arrives — workshopped: no
2 — "decided public sidewalk safety was not the same as management" (line 7) — mechanism: self-serving taxonomy (incongruity between act and label) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: shows the rationalization engine Ruth will later interrogate — workshopped: no
3 — "He had not laminated it. He was prepared to call that restraint." (line 9) — mechanism: bar-lowering deflation in free indirect — source: character (Theo audits himself; no narrator wit needed) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the route card is this book's object) — dramatic work: arms the card as the chapter's through-object — workshopped: no (checked against the raw draft's "call that growth" + train-consideration triple; synthesis broke the symmetry the tic audit flagged)
4 — "an inspection and a blessing" (line 13) — mechanism: register-collision apposition — source: narrator-overlay — funniness: 1 — portable: yes (any matriarch, any object, any book) — dramatic work: redundant — Mara's next line performs both halves in her own voice — workshopped: yes (neat two-noun symmetry, composed not generated)
5 — "I checked three forecasts, which Luis says is two forecasts past useful" (line 13) — mechanism: specificity overload + ventriloquized dry correction — source: character (Mara's over-hosting; Luis's economy reported through her tic) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: scarf custody continuity (Ch 18 seed); Mara/Luis dynamic in one line — workshopped: no
6 — "We have an arrangement," June said (line 15) — mechanism: deadpan contract-language for warmth — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no ("arrangement" echoes the fake-couple arrangement without winking) — dramatic work: June accepts care on her own terms — workshopped: no
7 — "without saying the word *handrail* out loud" (line 17) — mechanism: suppressed-impulse — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: first link in the suppression chain that pays off at the handoff — workshopped: no
8 — "The kid nodded at Theo like a colleague. Theo did not hate it fast enough." (line 17) — mechanism: timing reversal (the lag is the confession) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: miniature of the chapter card's revelation — Theo enjoys being believed and hates that he enjoys it — workshopped: no (considered as polish-risk; passes because the self-policing *is* the chapter's content, not decoration on it)
9 — "Etchings are in the back" / "I was going to start at the front," she said, and started at the front (lines 19–21) — mechanism: deflation of anticipation — source: character (both) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June's agency corrects Theo's route reflex; the chapter's whole argument in two lines — workshopped: no
10 — "apologized to a box of glassine sleeves" (line 23) — mechanism: misdirected politeness, physical — source: situation + character (Ben's nerves in a crowded room) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (glassine sleeves, flat files — craft-true) — dramatic work: room scale set up for item 19 — workshopped: no
11 — "gathering reactions like coats" (line 25) — mechanism: incongruous simile — source: narrator-overlay (wit no character is generating, painted over a transition) — funniness: 1 — portable: yes (fits any hostess in any ensemble novel) — dramatic work: NONE beyond scene transit — workshopped: leaning yes; sole surviving overlay simile after synthesis cut "like a fish he'd caught," the retirement-watch, and the heating grate
12 — "I can't tell whether I'm having an opinion or enjoying the clip lights, and I become difficult when unsupervised." (line 25) — mechanism: self-deprecating pretext for matchmaking — source: character (front half); the tail clause is composed-for-quotation — funniness: 2 on the clip lights, 1 on the tail — portable: tail yes — dramatic work: covers Mara's pairing maneuver (couple-default treatment, the chapter engine) — workshopped: yes (tail clause; punchline syntax, detachable)
13 — "Is that plate tone, or did they just not wipe it?" / "Then I get to keep both theories." (lines 29–33) — mechanism: craft deadpan + epistemic greed — source: character (June's painter eye; voice-card-true) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (intaglio wiping is real and specific) — dramatic work: June forgets the outing; Theo has nothing to fix and likes it — workshopped: no (improved from the draft's flat "Good answer")
14 — "The rent is less bad, which is how they get you." (line 35) — mechanism: anxious self-aware rationalization — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (anchored to fourth-floor/no-elevator tradeoff) — dramatic work: opens the rent-math thread as pressure, not premise — workshopped: no
15 — "Read the actual text before you plan our furniture," (line 37) — mechanism: deflation by literalism — source: character (Priya brisk-kind) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: shows the real stakes under the bit (he plans; she brakes) — workshopped: no
16 — "I made a note, not a floor plan. Important distinction." (line 39) — mechanism: distinction-without-difference — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: Ben's planning-as-love wound, visible — workshopped: no (fragment tail is Ben's anxious register, speakable)
17 — "He has a note, and a spreadsheet, and the note has a rule at the top." (line 41) — mechanism: escalating exposure — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: arms item 18 — workshopped: no
18 — "Rent math is not a proposal... I made the font bigger, because the font needed help." (line 43) — mechanism: displaced anxiety (typography as proxy for commitment) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the shared note titled *SUFFOLK?* is on-page) — dramatic work: the couple's arc question (practical vs. chosen partnership) in an object — workshopped: no
19 — "if the numbers get clean enough, the rest becomes automatic" (line 45) — mechanism: incongruity (actuarial logic applied to marriage) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: names Ben's error without the narrator doing it — workshopped: no
20 — "Sort of," / "That means no." + clementine (lines 45–49) — mechanism: deadpan translation — source: character (Priya's voice-card care move) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — the exchange shape alone would be portable; the coat-pocket clementine and "You came straight from work" anchor it — dramatic work: cohort care reaching June without ceremony — workshopped: no
21 — "We don't live together." / "Oh." Ben blinked. "That's also data." / "It's the only data," (lines 55–59) — mechanism: deflation (asks the experienced table, gets a fact) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June patrols the border; route card returns to Theo's chest — comedy and cost in the same beat — workshopped: no
22 — "called Vestibule. Theo respected the name for admitting the problem." (line 61) — mechanism: deadpan literalism — source: character (Theo's logistics eye) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: stages the square-footage bit — workshopped: no
23 — "On the seventh head, he stopped counting." (line 61) — mechanism: suppressed-impulse, mid-act — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the suppression chain advances; he interrupts himself one head late, which is honest — workshopped: no
24 — "I'm fine." / "I know. Your left knee keeps looking for a wall. Stool." (lines 63–67) — mechanism: evidence-override + imperative repetition — source: character (Priya body-aware) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: care as observation, contrast to Theo's care as pre-emption — workshopped: no (synthesis replaced the draft's tidier "It's not a question about how you feel. It's a stool.")
25 — "Stand here. Not symbolically. You can actually see all three from here." (line 69) — mechanism: deflation of expected symbolism — source: character (Sam's owned move per voice card) — funniness: 2 — portable: no within this book's voice system — dramatic work: Sam's care = making room; quietly re-seats June at the center — workshopped: no
26 — "twenty-nine hundred dollars a month to live in this gallery minus the ceiling." / "Put the phone down for one room," (lines 71–73) — mechanism: specificity overload → reframe, then deflation — source: character + situation (the room is physically present; the joke could not happen elsewhere) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: fuses the gallery walk to the rent thread; Priya's line keeps it pressure, not routine — workshopped: no (draft's "I'm watching you consider it" symmetry was correctly cut)
27 — "It's the wall. The floor slopes. The painting's level." (line 79) — mechanism: deadpan expert verdict — source: character (Luis; 1 of his 2-per-appearance cap) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: sanctioned fixing thrown against Theo's suppressed fixing (item: fingers folded back around the route card) — workshopped: no
28 — "Luis checked it from two places before anyone asked, so now we all benefit." (line 81) — mechanism: affectionate translation — source: character (Mara's tic, within bounds) — funniness: 2, modest — portable: no — dramatic work: Mara/Luis texture — workshopped: no (draft's "It's a whole thing" was the sitcom version; this is the warm one)
29 — "Sublet," Mara read aloud / "Don't," Ben said. (lines 87–89) — mechanism: compressed call-and-refusal — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Clinton St. index card, March 1) — dramatic work: rent thread kept alive at zero cost — workshopped: no
30 — "The gold one isn't gold. It's confident, though." (line 91) — mechanism: painter's-eye deadpan personification — source: character (June optical, voice-card true) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (corner samples, miters) — dramatic work: June's eye working for pleasure — the thing the book is restoring to her — workshopped: no
31 — "I want your eyes on those etchings, and Ruth's already told me I'm wrong." (line 93) — mechanism: self-deprecating pretext — source: character — funniness: 2, modest — portable: no — dramatic work: engineers the Ruth/Theo walk visibly but in-voice — workshopped: no
32 — "It had a shortcut on it." / "I'm sure it did." (lines 113–114) — mechanism: weak-excuse deadpan turned into evidence — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the Sonia's bar map is established inventory) — dramatic work: the only comic beat inside the warning, and it sharpens it — Theo's defense proves Ruth's point — workshopped: no
33 — espresso machine "wedged between the lotto terminal and the cat food. A handwritten sign over it said CORTADO YES." (line 127, paid at 135 by Ben reading it "as if terms might be hidden in it") — mechanism: found-object incongruity with character-true payoff — source: situation/character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: lands the group somewhere real — workshopped: no — **placement problem: see Order 4**
34 — "Two," he said. "Ask her first." / "Coffee. Black. Separate." / "ordered a coffee he had a standing rule against drinking after six, paid for only his own, and drank it" (lines 141–145) — mechanism: behavior-reversal + self-punishing deadpan tail — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the chapter's repair beat; the penance coffee converts the joke into consequence — workshopped: no
35 — "There's track work. There's always track work. I have three theories." (line 147) — mechanism: anxious escalation, rule of three — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: borderline-no (F-train service is Ben's established terrain) — dramatic work: bait for the handoff — workshopped: no, but see watch note on Ben's spent timing shape
36 — Ben "received it with both hands. 'There's a fallback coffee place *ranked*,'" + "Theo's evening no longer had a card in it." (lines 149–151) — mechanism: reverence-for-the-mundane incongruity, paying a chapter-long suppression chain — source: character × character (the card finds its true believer; the giver is the joke's cost-bearer) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: Theo relinquishes the instrument of over-management on the page, post-Ruth — the comedy *is* the arc beat — workshopped: no (the draft's "the way some men receive watches at retirement" and "with reverence" were overlay; "with both hands" now carries it alone)
37 — "Ruth said good night to everyone equally, which landed worse than being singled out." (line 153) — mechanism: paradox deflation — source: character interiority (Theo's dread, not narrator wit) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: keeps Ruth's question open into Ch 11 — workshopped: no (nearest miss to dialogue-diagnosis; passes — it rates behavior and his reaction, not her phrasing)
38 — "kept the shortcut to himself" / "Her pace was quicker than the route card would have budgeted for." (line 161) — mechanism: repetition-with-variation callback (shortcut map → withheld; card → measure of his miscalibration) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: closes the Sonia's-map evidence from Ruth's indictment with changed behavior — workshopped: no

CHAPTER VERDICT: **CLEAR** — with three blocking findings (items 4, 11, 12-tail) and one sweetness-placement order.

35 of 38 items score funniness-2; sources are overwhelmingly character/situation; only one overlay simile and one overlay apposition survived synthesis. Mechanisms are varied (deflation, specificity overload, suppressed-impulse, evidence-override, found-object, reverence-incongruity, callback); the heavy deadpan/suppression count is not MONOTONOUS because Theo's suppression chain (handrail → head-count → hanging wire → coffee order → shortcut → handoff) is a structured running gag with variation and an arc payoff, not a recurring reflex.

**Strongest item:** #36, the route-card handoff — "Ben received it with both hands. 'There's a fallback coffee place *ranked*.'" Two characters' wounds meet in one object; the laugh and the relinquishment are the same event; nothing about it survives transplant to another book.

**Weakest surviving item:** #28 — "Luis checked it from two places before anyone asked, so now we all benefit." It lands, but only as texture; it is the closest the chapter comes to a line that amuses without costing anyone anything.

FOCUS CHECKS:
- **Laminated-card humor:** sourced from Theo's free-indirect self-audit (items 1–3, 7, 23), not narrator overlay. The draft's overlay versions ("buzzing in his hand like it had opinions," "call that growth" triple) were repaired out; what remains is Theo grading his own restraint, which is character.
- **Suffolk/rent math:** now character pressure. The draft's sitcom volley ("a sign / a Tuesday" / "It's a Thursday" / "For them it was a Tuesday") is gone, replaced by Priya's furniture line and "Put the phone down for one room" — both of which push on Ben rather than rally with him. The font joke (item 18) is displaced anxiety, not a setup-punchline unit, and Ben's question to the "experienced table" converts the bit into plot (item 21).
- **Mara/Luis/June window lines:** warm and specific (items 13, 28, 29, 30, 33). "The gold one isn't gold. It's confident, though" is non-portable painter comedy; "It's a whole thing" — the generic-quip risk — was already cut. The one generic survivor is item 11's coat simile, ordered below.
- **Ruth's warning:** not softened. From "June paid for her slot" (line 99) to "Make sure it belongs to her" (line 131), the only comic exchange is item 32, which incriminates Theo rather than relieving him. No jokes pad his "I'll find one." The single intrusion is staging, not dialogue: the CORTADO YES sign lands between Ruth's two gravest sentences (Order 4).
- **Portability/workshopping after synthesis:** the repairs removed most composed wit (fish simile, retirement watch, "with reverence," "I'm watching you consider it," "It's a whole thing"). Three composed/portable items survived the pass: items 4, 11, and the tail of 12. All three are pre-existing draft language the synthesis carried forward unexamined.

REVISION ORDERS:

1. **Item 4 — cut the apposition.** "Mara touched the scarf's fringe in passing, an inspection and a blessing." Failure: narrator-overlay caption, funniness-1, portable. Her very next line ("Keep it through Monday, please. I checked three forecasts... and I have the gray one in my bag") performs both the inspection and the blessing in Mara's own voice (voice card: parenthetical warmth, explains before asked). Order: end the sentence at "in passing." Do not replace with a softer caption.

2. **Item 11 — cut or re-source the coats simile.** "Mara made the rounds, gathering reactions like coats." Failure: narrator-overlay, funniness-1, portable, no dramatic work. Order: either cut to "Mara made the rounds" or replace the simile with concrete Mara behavior from this scene's inventory — e.g., her relaying one cohort member's verdict to the next as she moves (her social-memory care move per voice card). No new simile.

3. **Item 12 — de-workshop the tail clause.** "...and I become difficult when unsupervised." Failure: composed-for-quotation, detachable, portable; Mara is not licensed for high-density memorable lines (style doc: that license is Odile's alone, and Mara's card warns against every line landing as a social punchline). The clip-lights half is character-true and sufficient pretext for the wall assignment. Order: cut the tail clause, ending her speech at "...enjoying the clip lights," and let "Then she walked off to find Priya" do the exit; or replace the tail with a hosting-logistics reason in her register. Do not soften it into a politer aphorism.

4. **Item 33 — relocate the sign reveal out of Ruth's warning.** "A handwritten sign over it said CORTADO YES" currently sits between "Maybe I'm wrong. I'd prefer to be" and "I saw enough to be worried. Not enough to be right" — a joke-shaped sentence wedged into the chapter's sharpest beat (sweetness calibration, single instance; not verdict-level). Order: during Ruth's stop, compress to the bare location ("a bodega on the corner of Allen"); move the espresso-machine wedge and the CORTADO YES sign to the interior paragraph at line 135, where Ben reading the sign already pays them off. The setup and payoff then live in the same warm beat and Ruth's speech runs unbroken.

WATCH NOTES (for tics.md and downstream chapters):
- **Suppression chain spent with the card.** The route card has left Theo's possession on the page. The gag must not regenerate (no new card, no replacement checklist object played for the same laugh) — Ch 08's Theo chapter needs a different comic engine for his over-management, which Ch 10's hands assignment will want anyway.
- **Symmetrical spouse-translation.** Mara translates Luis twice (items 5, 28); Priya narrates Ben three times (items 15, 17, 19). Same explain-your-partner mechanism across both couples in one chapter. Each is voice-card-licensed individually; in the next ensemble chapter, vary one couple's mechanism so the cohort doesn't read as one couple in two fonts.
- **Coffee-ordering as comic stage: now spent.** The counter beat (item 34) is sanctioned here because it's the repair beat, but the reading guide caps coffee-ordering as a tic and the Ch 23 card already bans it at Sonia's. Log it; no further coffee-counter comedy.
- **Ben's transit-timing shape.** "There's always track work. I have three theories" is adjacent to Ch 05's spent clock/phone shape. It passes here because it baits the handoff; Ben's next appearance needs anxiety material that isn't a timetable.
- **"Oh." rationing.** Ben's "Oh." at line 57 continues into a sentence, so it isn't the banned one-word reaction paragraph, but the guide reserves the standalone "Oh." for the Ch 24 confession. Tracker should log this instance so the confession's allowance isn't diluted by accumulation.
- **"set it down again" (line 163).** Not a literal "left that thought" variant (the capped family from Ch 05), and it's about candidate names, not refused conclusions — but it's family-adjacent. No further variants in Ch 07–08.
- **Counter-candidates checked and passed:** "That means no" (portable exchange shape — saved by the clementine and "You came straight from work"); "Theo did not hate it fast enough" (polish risk — passes because the self-policing is the chapter's stated revelation, not ornament); "landed worse than being singled out" (dialogue-diagnosis adjacency — rates behavior and Theo's dread, not Ruth's phrasing).
