# Comedy Doctor — Chapter 15 (`Keys Elsewhere`)

Calibration: reading guide commits warm/precise/lightly comic, every chapter; target reader is the O'Leary-warmth / Henry-at-60%-banter / Morisaki-quiet reader — character-true dryness, no zinger economy. Chapter-specific bar: the felt experience is adult temptation; no item may make the offer unserious or reduce Nia/Asha to devices. Inherited-spend watch from the tracker: Ch13 logistics-joke spine spent, Ch14 paired-echo ceiling, legal-clerical register spent since Ch08, object-personification families capped since Ch08, Nia zinger density already flattened once (12 → Dialogue Doctor round 2 CLEAN; this audit re-checks the residue).

`INVENTORY:`

1 — "a single stitch at the seam, popping with a sound like a knuckle… chin clamped on the top spine" (l.3) — mechanism: physical deflation + acoustic specificity — source: situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: makes the Ch14 catalog loan a literal burden before it is a moral one — workshopped: no
2 — "This took four minutes to establish and involved every flat surface she owned" + the 8" shelf / 10.5" catalogs / 30×40 table survey (l.5) — mechanism: mock-procedural over-precision — source: character (June the installer measuring her own life) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the comedy lives in the measurements and the ledgered catalogs as "a deposit against her own behavior") — dramatic work: lease/offer pressure made spatial — workshopped: no
3 — "She told herself that was about weight distribution." (l.7) — mechanism: transparent self-deception, deadpan — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: protects the paper-slip volume (S-CATALOG-01) while showing avoidance as method — workshopped: no
4 — stack turned to face the wall → "facing them at the wall had been melodramatic and the slip was just paper" (l.7/107) — mechanism: repetition-with-variation, self-correction — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: avoidance arc opened and repaired on-page — workshopped: no
5 — "Pen that worked, established by scribble." → "despite the pen that worked" → "took the pen that worked" → "in case the rest of the answer came from the same pen. It didn't come." (l.9/81/109/113) — mechanism: running deadpan over-rigor, repetition-with-variation — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: preparation-as-fear made visible; the last instance converts the gag into the chapter's ache — workshopped: no
6 — jacket cuff turned inward "not because she was hiding it… she'd be admitting she'd noticed" (l.9) — mechanism: self-deception logic-pretzel — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: keeps the umber/Theo pressure alive with Theo off-page — workshopped: no
7 — "It had been unopened for twenty-six hours. It occupied one narrow strip of sill." (l.11) — mechanism: deadpan duration-precision — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: quantifies the kept mark; arms the close — workshopped: no
8 — "*what happens if no*. Then she put one heavy line through the last one." (l.11) — mechanism: visual self-censorship gag — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: names the real question by striking it — workshopped: no
9 — "both of which were real, neither of which had taken until eight-forty" (l.13) — mechanism: symmetrical deadpan self-indictment — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (invoice, Marchetti Rooms, the texted Tuesday deadline) — workshopped: no — strongest counter-candidate I considered for workshopped syntax; the balanced clause is June's self-audit rhythm (perception → judgment → self-rebuke per card) and the content is chapter-specific, so it survives — dramatic work: two days' stalling entered as evidence
10 — "I had a thing with panels." / "For two days." / "They were complicated panels." (l.17–21) — mechanism: escalating lame excuse, deflation — source: character, with Nia's flat puncture — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: deflection visible as deflection (guide §2 satisfied); sets Nia's no-pity standing — workshopped: no
11 — "Or the other way around, depending on which grant we're answering to." (l.23) — mechanism: institutional deadpan — source: character (Nia's grant-world candor) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: anti-brochure texture; the job is real, funded, fragile — workshopped: no
12 — "fix the boring things before the artists arrive so they don't fix them wrong" (l.27) — mechanism: deadpan professional misanthropy — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: defines the trap in one clause — June valued for prevention, not making — workshopped: no
13 — "an etching press that needs listening to" (l.27) — mechanism: soft personification — source: character — funniness: 1 — portable: yes (this phrase could sit in any workshop novel's duty list) — dramatic work: duty-list charm only — workshopped: no — **BLOCKING (partial + portable)**
14 — "Marco's been opening it with a screwdriver." / "This is why I called you and not the other names on my list" (l.33) — mechanism: professional horror deployed as flattery — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: baits June's fixer reflex; respect, not rescue — workshopped: no
15 — "That's a spring or it's twenty years of grease where grease shouldn't be. Either way it's an afternoon." June heard herself and stopped. "Hypothetically." (l.35) — mechanism: competence self-betrayal, timing reversal — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the chapter's engine — she is already doing the job mid-deferral; sets the press-vs-wall trap — workshopped: no
16 — "I'll spare you the rent math." / "I can do math," June agreed. She had already done it in the margin anyway (l.41–43) — mechanism: dry rebuttal undercut by narration — source: character (both) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June further in than her dialogue admits; Nia's read of her confirmed — workshopped: no
17 — "You're being very fair about the part where it might evaporate." (l.53) — mechanism: honest warning dressed as a joke (June's card care move, exactly) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: stress-tests the offer so it stays non-strawman — workshopped: no
18 — "Which brings me to the unfun part." (l.55) — mechanism: stock transition quip — source: narrator-overlay wearing Nia's voice (portable professional idiom, no Nia specificity) — funniness: 1 — portable: yes — dramatic work: NONE beyond throat-clearing for the deadline — workshopped: no — **BLOCKING (partial + portable)**
19 — "Noon. Eat lunch after." (l.79) — mechanism: imperative compression, care-as-logistics — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the joke is the noon deadline specifically) — dramatic work: warms the hang-up without blunting the clock — workshopped: no — checked for Odile register-collision (feeding-as-care, terse imperative): it brushes her mechanism but stays practical, not aphoristic; cleared, do not give Nia a second Odile-shaped imperative
20 — "You in or do I give your slot to Dario" / "Don't give it to Dario. He overtightens everything." / "He does. So that's a yes?" (l.85–89) — mechanism: trade-insult deflection + peer puncture — source: character (both) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June dodges via craft judgment and Asha names the dodge; the New York path stays materially live — workshopped: no — checked for sitcom cadence: the texts are unpunctuated, rate-bearing work messages ($32/hr, net-45), and "So that's a yes?" is puncture, not rimshot; cleared
21 — "you'd love it, it's terrible" / "send pics of the terrible room" (l.93) — mechanism: paradox compression with pickup — source: character (varies Asha's card family "Not pretty. Cheap enough to forgive," does not repeat it) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (anchored to $340/mo, no heat after 10pm, and June's documented taste for honest-ugly rooms) — dramatic work: keeps Ridgewood real and June engaged with it — workshopped: no
22 — "have the gripper bar apologizing by Friday and a wet canvas in the back room by the Friday after" (l.95) — mechanism: hyperbolic personification in June's trade idiom — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: makes Asha's Tasker fitness concrete and loads the referral ("not hers to spend yet") with real weight — Asha is not a device here — workshopped: no
23 — "June, who had sworn off looking at it, looked at it." / "not surprised. That was the trouble with it. Surprised she could have explained." (l.99) — mechanism: self-betrayal repetition + reversal — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: flyer/kiss pressure carried without Theo on page — workshopped: no
24 — "one occupied by a coat that I ruled counts" / "The coat counts. Coats are people who left their position marked." / "That's going in the label notes." (l.101–105) — mechanism: mock-adjudication, shared bit-building — source: character (both: Theo's ledger idiom, June's label-draft authority) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: continues the After Class chair-count thread, and June's ruling reads straight back onto her own marked position in New York — workshopped: no, on inspection — "Coats are people who left their position marked" is epigram-shaped, but Theo's "I ruled" solicits a ruling, June delivers it as label language (their established Ch13/14 project), and Theo files it; the scene generates it. Logged: this sits at the maxim ceiling, and "I ruled" is the lone legal-clerical token since the Ch08 spend (single, dialogue, in-idiom — cleared)
25 — "so it couldn't slide off, fold shut, or otherwise excuse itself" (l.115) — mechanism: personification of her own avoidance, displaced onto paper — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the close — she pins her escape routes under the jar she hasn't opened — workshopped: no (the triad is a watch-tier cadence, but each verb is a literal failure mode of a propped receipt)

**Distribution checks.**
- *Density:* ~25 items, correct for "lightly comic" — and correctly placed. The comedy clusters in the avoidance frame (apartment, station, texts); the temptation core is joke-free: the Tuesday walkthrough, the press-vs-wall realization (l.67–69), "a woman at the press who would not turn around" (l.113) carry no comic items. The offer stays serious; this is the chapter's main calibration test and it passes.
- *Mechanism variety:* over-precision deadpan ×5 (items 2, 5, 7, 9, plus station inventory), transparent self-deception ×4 (3, 4, 6, 23), personification ×3 (13, 22, 25), peer-candor puncture ×3 (16, 17, 20), remainder singletons. Two clusters, but both *are* the chapter's psychological subject (avoidance performed as procedure) and vary internally. Not MONOTONOUS. Tracker note: over-precision is spent as a chapter spine — Ch16 must not inherit it as default comedy; personification family (capped since Ch08 for folder/scarf) stands at 3 here, 2 after the item-13 repair — no new object-as-agent gag in Ch16.
- *Inherited-spend sweep:* no paired-echo confirmations, no prepared Theo persuasion speech, no Odile aphorism (Odile absent), no *Winter Kitchen*, no Ch13-style social-logistics joke spine — the measurement comedy here is solitary and load-bearing-different in function. Nia zinger residue after the Dialogue Doctor flatten: two card-anchor lines deployed verbatim at their one sanctioned scene ("Pay's not glamorous…", "If you say no, send me someone good…") plus one varied ("work, not a rescue" for "not absolution"); surrounding speech is functional spec. Within the style guide's half-functional floor — except item 18, ordered below.
- *Sweetness:* the struck-through "*what happens if no*" stays struck; nothing jokes the deadline smaller. Not OVERSWEETENED.
- *Cringe:* none; no item misjudges the Morisaki-quiet end of the target reader.

`REVISION ORDERS:`

1. **Item 18 — "Which brings me to the unfun part." (l.55).** Failure: portable professional idiom; the only line in the call Nia did not have to be Nia to say, and it scores partial. Fix per Nia's voice card (deadline-driven, money/time specifics, no garnish): cut the quip and let the chair-creak beat plus the date do the turn — e.g. "One more thing. It has a date on it." — or delete the line entirely and let June's "There's a deadline." arrive off the pause, which sharpens June's having already done this math too. Do not soften into politeness.

2. **Item 13 — "an etching press that needs listening to" (l.27).** Failure: funniness-1 and portable — pre-softened charm in a duty list that elsewhere commits (the gripper gets "Shut. Intermittently." and Marco's screwdriver, and that commitment produces item 15, the chapter's best engine). Fix: either commit with one concrete audible symptom in Nia's spec idiom (a bearing that knocks on the return at speed; something June's pen would transcribe the way she transcribed the gripper) or flatten to plain spec ("an etching press with a bearing going"). Replace the portable phrase with this book's machine inventory; do not keep the shrug.

Tracker guidance (non-blocking): "Coats are people who left their position marked" fills the maxim allowance — zero label-note epigrams in Ch16; Nia gets no second Odile-shaped imperative; over-precision deadpan and the personification family rest next chapter.

**Verdict.** Majority funniness-2, overwhelmingly character/situation-sourced (one overlay item, ordered out), mechanisms varied, and the comedy consistently does dramatic work — the offer is never the joke, and Nia and Asha emerge more solid for being funny in their own registers. Strongest surviving item: #15 — "That's a spring or it's twenty years of grease where grease shouldn't be. Either way it's an afternoon. … Hypothetically." Weakest surviving item: #11 — "Or the other way around, depending on which grant we're answering to." — lands, but lightest. Two blocking findings stand; the chapter is not committable until orders 1 and 2 are executed.

CLEAR
