The audit is written to `output/critiques/claude/chapter_20.comedy_doctor_round7.md`. The completed document follows.

# Comedy Doctor — Chapter 20: No Advice / Keys Here — ROUND 7 (current-text verification)

Register audited: warm, precise, lightly comic; never sitcom, never banter-for-banter (READING_GUIDE §2). Target-reader calibration: O'Leary warmth, Henry at ~60% banter density, Morisaki/Coffee quiet — a reader who wants small routines to carry feeling and is bored by workshopped wit. Chapter-card demands (CHAPTER CARD - 20): comedy must arise from June's arithmetic self-defense, Ruth/Sam's care-without-advice, Asha's load-in directness, Nia's professional briskness; Ruth one sharp line max; no inspirational refusal; prose dials "June plain, less jokey, precise about money and materials"; the humor must not soften the Tasker loss.

Scope note: this round audits the current text after the Genericization restoration thread (rounds 1–3, closed HELD) and Dialogue Doctor round 12 (CLEAN). The round-6 inventory was built on a superseded text; ten of its items no longer exist in the current chapter in the form scored there ("Restful to look at," "It was still good. That was the entire problem with the left page," "watched her decline to read it out loud," "And a hand truck if you need it," the Theo-apology/heat line, "I win the math," "That was a different noon," "The clean answer was gone," the shelf commitment-device clause, "a colder room with better light"), and the restoration returned the five comic-risk items named in this round's charge in their adjudicated forms. The inventory below is rebuilt from scratch against the current text; nothing is inherited from round 6, and the restored items are treated as prime suspects, not as pre-cleared.

INVENTORY:

1 — "Twenty-six hours, give or take the walk from the sink to the table." (line 3) — mechanism: mock-precision (deadline tolerance stated in seconds-of-walk) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: sets the noon clock and June's arithmetic-as-coping in one stroke; frame reopened by item 40 — workshopped: no.

2 — "She had kept stepping back from paintings as if distance might fix a drawing problem, when the problem was in the drawing." (line 13) — mechanism: rueful chiasmus, craft-metaphor self-diagnosis — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: names her avoidance pattern in her own trade terms; cashed literally at lines 157–159 when she steps back "the distance she'd have at Dana's," steps in, and the corner stays — workshopped: no. (Restored item and the chapter's most composed narration; interrogated for setup-turn polish. Survives as a plant, not a flourish — the payoff is physical, and the guide licenses her sparing visual analogy. Ceiling note: with the non-comic scumble figure at line 99 this is one of exactly two craft figures; a third would flip this ruling.)

3 — "She'd done it four times and it came out the same every time: the left page won." (line 13) — mechanism: deadpan contest-frame (a two-page spread scored like a match) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: certifies the offer's goodness in June's own arithmetic, which the refusal must later cost — workshopped: no.

4 — "Mara wants her dish back before Luis refills it." (line 17) — mechanism: implied escalation (the Valdez care-conveyor pre-empted) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: motivates the visit; pays the Ch18 blue-dish tether as a practical object per the standing order — workshopped: no.

5 — "door sticks, push don't pull." (line 19) — mechanism: understatement (assent rendered as mechanical instruction) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June admits the cohort to her apartment for the first time in the book, in the only register she can afford — workshopped: no. (Door-joke count: instruction about a literal door, not a door joke; see item 20.)

6 — "the orange scarf that made everyone else on the stairwell look provisional" (line 23) — mechanism: optical incongruity (saturation read as authority) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: re-establishes Sam's warmth before a line is spoken, through June's painter-eye — workshopped: no. (Overlay hunt: narration, but the judgment is a saturation read only this focalizer makes; character, not overlay.)

7 — "We're double-parked," Ruth said. "Two minutes." / "Two minutes is right," June said. (lines 25–27) — mechanism: mutual-boundary deadpan — source: character+situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: both parties want the care bounded; the visit's terms are the chapter thesis in miniature — workshopped: no.

8 — "There's coffee. There hasn't been milk since Sunday." (line 27) — mechanism: hospitality with deficit disclosure — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the fridge documents the rupture week without a feeling named (dish since Tuesday, milk since Sunday, decision due noon Friday) — workshopped: no.

9 — "What's the freight?" (line 29, with the corner-test) — mechanism: trade-register deadpan (a domestic errand priced as shipping) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: opens June's routing beat on Sam's terms — contents, weight, destination — so nobody has to ask how she is — workshopped: no. (Restored item, interrogated for portability: any mover could say the words, but the question is asked of a box of Odile's catalogs June cannot carry back herself, and its answer is item 10; non-portable in function.)

10 — "Catalogs. Eight. They belong at the studio. They're Odile's. … If Theo is there, could you leave them at Sonia's with a note for Mara? If he isn't, inside the door is fine." (line 31) — mechanism: over-specification as self-defense (contingency routing for one box) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: Theo-avoidance rendered entirely as logistics; the cardboard edge pressing "a line into her thumb" keeps the cost in frame — workshopped: no.

11 — "We know how to deliver a box," Ruth said. (line 33) — mechanism: flat correction — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: punctures the over-instruction without touching the feeling underneath it — care without advice as a speech act — workshopped: no.

12 — "The box is the errand. The dish is separate." → "Actually, no. Tell Mara I'm bringing the dish myself Tuesday. Tell her I'll sit where she tells me." (line 35) — mechanism: over-categorization deflated by live reversal, capped by pre-emptive surrender to Mara's seating authority — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June's control taxonomy fails in the right direction on the page; commits her to cohort re-entry before the job decision exists — workshopped: no.

13 — "She'll like that better than the dish," Sam said. (line 37) — mechanism: warm deflation — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: names what the visit was actually for without giving advice — workshopped: no.

14 — Sam "picked the box up properly this time, knees," carried it to the door, "and moved the chair that was blocking the door's swing six inches to the left." (line 37) — mechanism: physical repetition-with-variation, one-word method note — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: Sam's owned care move (making physical room) enacted, not stated — workshopped: no. (Ch16 chair-count family check: action, not a count-shaped joke.)

15 — "You can leave that part out," Ruth said. "We came for the dish." (line 45) — mechanism: scope-limiting mercy — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: releases June from explaining Tuesday; privacy honored as jurisdiction; also the beat that keeps Ruth's confession (excluded, below) from turning therapeutic — workshopped: no.

16 — "I'm not asking for an opinion. I want to be clear that I'm not asking." / "We have a car," Ruth said. (lines 47–49) — mechanism: non-answer as answer (opinion refused, inventory supplied) — source: character+situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the chapter card's engine in two lines — the ban on advice is honored to the letter and answered in transport — workshopped: no.

17 — "If the answer involves moving anything heavier than this, you have our number. That's not an opinion. That's a hand truck." (line 51) — mechanism: literalization (advice converted into equipment), punchline-timed — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the offer is valid for either city, so it steers nothing; care lands as labor while the decision stays June's — workshopped: no. (Restored item and the chapter's most workshop-shaped line; interrogated hardest. It is a topper on Ruth's straight line — the one two-hander beat in the chapter — and it carries the "not X. That's Y" template. Survives because the joke's entire content is the refusal to say anything wiser, it is speakable in one breath by a person holding a box, the other half of the exchange is aggressively unquotable ("We have a car."), and June denies it a rimshot with "Noted." One such beat is inside register; a second would be sitcom. Template rest ordered forward, not on this text.)

18 — "Noted," June said. "Both of you--thank you. For the box." (line 53) — mechanism: scope-limited thanks with a fumbled object-tag — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June accepts care while refusing to be caught needing it — her card contradiction on the page; "For the box." misfiles the gratitude on purpose — workshopped: no. ("Noted" count: 1 of the licensed 2.)

19 — "the box of catalogs left June's apartment a quarter before eleven on Thursday." (line 55) — mechanism: mock-precision clock notation — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: closes the visit inside the chapter's binding visible-clock discipline; the Theo-adjacent freight exits without June touching the studio — workshopped: no. (Arithmetic check: arrival 10:40 at line 23, exit ~10:45; computes.)

20 — "Talk fast, I'm holding a door with my whole body." (line 63) — mechanism: hyperbole grounded literal — source: situation+character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: prices Asha's attention and sets the call's economy — June's two asks must fit a closing gate — workshopped: no. (This is the chapter's one door joke; the draft's "I have to go be a door again" reprise remains cut. No repeat: item 5 is instruction, not joke.)

21 — "Say the studio clause again." … "Who writes that?" Asha said. "Nia Torres, apparently. I've seen her hang at the co-op. She'll eyeball a run and put a level on it anyway. She's serious." (lines 67–71) — mechanism: priority-reveal + self-answered question + trade specificity — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: of nine terms, Asha asks back for the clause June wants most — an independent installer certifies exactly what June is about to refuse, the chapter's best insurance against the loss going soft; plants the level item 39 varies — workshopped: no. ("go get your clause": absent; this earned interrogative is where it would have gone.)

22 — "and the radiator is decorative." (line 83) — mechanism: deadpan trade-fact (heat priced as décor) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: prices the chosen path honestly mid-pitch and arms the reserved contrast with Tasker's "radiators that worked" (line 9) — the two-line ledger of what June gives up — workshopped: no. (Restored by the round-2 Genericization order; interrogated for portability: the phrase alone would port, the contrast pair cannot — it is built from this chapter's two notebook pages. Pair count 2, no third heat joke; the three heat facts at lines 83, 99, and 125 stay distinct transactions per Purple round 3.)

23 — "Wear the coat inside until February." (line 83) — mechanism: cost restated as apparel policy — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: keeps the New York path priced inside a rent-and-dates list; plants FEB = coat (item 38) — workshopped: no. (Coat-instance cap: this and line 155 are the licensed pair; the draft topper "In February, also wear the coat" remains out; Ruth's buttoned coat at line 23 is a literal garment, not an instance.)

24 — "Take the crating if you get it. It's indoors." (line 87) — mechanism: two-word deflation (the job's best feature is shelter) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: sets December's floor at survival level; sharpens what refusing Tasker's benefits actually buys — workshopped: no.

25 — "The room's not pretty. Cheap enough to forgive." (line 87) — mechanism: price-judgment compression (rent absolving ugliness) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the room June chooses is sold to her at its true value by the person who found it; no one romanticizes the $340 — workshopped: no. (Restored item and the riskiest in the chapter: it is Asha's voice-card anchor nearly verbatim, i.e., composed-for-quotation by provenance. Survives in situ: spoken mid-shout with her name called off-phone, flanked by the decorative radiator and the coat instruction, and the hang-up one line later amputates any landing room — the delivery prices the line down along with the room. Spent: future Asha appearances must not recite card samples; a second near-verbatim anchor would be an automatic workshopped flag.)

26 — "and Asha hung up before the word was finished." (line 89) — mechanism: timing undercut — source: situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the favor closes as business; Asha's shift does not pause for June's gratitude — the consent boundary made structural — workshopped: no.

27 — "All right," Nia said. "Walk me through it. I ran the math with you three weeks ago. It wasn't close." (line 107) — mechanism: understatement, agonistic deadpan (the math on record) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: refuses to accept the no on politeness terms; forces June past arithmetic to the Vandercook — workshopped: no. (Text drift since round 6: "and I win the math" is now "It wasn't close." — flatter, and the flattening was interrogated as possible comic loss. Ruled still-landing: understatement is Nia's deadline register, and the single contest-frame survives without the punchline-adjacent math/math repetition round 5 flagged.)

28 — "They'd call the key number. It would be my phone." (line 117) — mechanism: dark deadpan literalization (the offer's best clause restated as her phone ringing) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the refusal's actual mechanism made concrete inside the confession; sharpens the loss — the clause is real and the trap is real at once — workshopped: no. (Sweetness check ran hardest here: the line sits inside the chapter's sharpest beat and was tested for joke-as-anesthetic. It is the opposite — the two flat sentences are the confession.)

29 — "February is a blank line in my notebook." (line 125) — mechanism: deadpan self-pricing (the counter's worst line stated in notation) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June makes her own counter honestly worse; no inspirational refusal — workshopped: no.

30 — "That's a worse offer," Nia said. "That's a worse offer on every line I have a column for." / "It is," June said. … "The line it wins on doesn't fit in a column. Ten feet, north window." (lines 127–129) — mechanism: deadpan verdict escalated by enumeration; figure completed then abandoned (June exits the metaphor into a line-item) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: Nia stays right on the record — the no-strawman obligation — while June's win is stated in feet and a window, not a speech; the loss is priced at its largest exactly here — workshopped: no. (Restored item and the round's center of gravity: a two-speaker completed figure is the classic duet-polish shape. Survives on current-text specifics: one shaped construction per side in an otherwise bare-spined call ("I'm calling to say no." / "But." / "It is."); the volley is broken mid-exchange by object business (the receipt turned print-side up, "the Marchetti header, the faded total"); and June's half is immediately cashed into the unquotable and then deflated into shop talk (item 31). A version that ran clean, or resolved warm, would have been ordered cut.)

31 — "If the program ever needs freelance install, I itemize and I'm fast." (line 129) — mechanism: dry professional self-summary — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: keeps the professional door open without pleading; hands Nia the diction item 33 pays — workshopped: no.

32 — "Noted," Nia said. "You know what I'm going to ask next." (line 131) — mechanism: repetition-with-variation across speakers (June's word handed back in Nia's register) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the mirrored "Noted" rhymes the two refusals — June's of advice, Nia's of persuasion — and pivots to the referral — workshopped: no. ("Noted" count: 2 of 2; spent, third banned.)

33 — "I know her invoices," Nia said. "She itemizes. That's already more than most references." (line 135) — mechanism: professional metonymy (character vouched by paperwork) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the reference lands in the book's material idiom; Asha becomes plausible on evidence, not on June's guilt — workshopped: no.

34 — "It's 10:52," Nia said. "Have her email before one. I have payroll at eleven." (line 139) — mechanism: bathetic close, scale juxtaposition (June's crossroads vs. the program's Tuesday payroll) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: anti-sentimental exit seconds after "come see it" — the world does not pause for June's decision, which is why the decision counts; the timestamp is cashed as fact at line 147 — workshopped: no. (Spoken-timestamp move is single-use per the dialogue tracker; a second use anywhere would harden it into a device.)

35 — "a thumbs up, and eleven seconds later, *ok now the boring parts.*" (line 147) — mechanism: deflation pivot with mock-precise timing — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: swings the chapter from verdict to execution; refuses congratulation — workshopped: no. (Idiom spent per tracker; retire or vary in future Asha texts.)

36 — "The front room was worse than described: bare bulb, paint-scabbed floor, the north window putting flat gray light across ten feet of empty wall. June looked at the light longest." (line 151) — mechanism: listing-convention reversal + priority reveal — source: situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: de-romanticizes the chosen path in the same beat that confirms it; the want re-sharpens on the one thing a painter needs — workshopped: no. ("listing of my dreams": absent; this inversion is where the quip would have gone.)

37 — "She had no printer. Paragraph 14 allowed email; she checked. In the email body she typed January 31 twice, once in the sentence and once in the subject line." (line 153) — mechanism: bureaucratic deadpan, belt-and-suspenders diligence — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: material precarity and proper leaving in three flat sentences; the doubled date is the person who ran the math four times — workshopped: no.

38 — "She filled the blank in the notebook: FEB = coat." (line 155; setup "FEB = ." at lines 11 and 91) — mechanism: blank-equation payoff, repetition-with-variation — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the chapter-long unfilled equation answered with endurance instead of money; the cost stays visible inside the joke, and it lands only after the no is spent — workshopped: no. (Paid and spent; any later coat mention must be a literal garment.)

39 — "one nail, level enough." (line 161) — mechanism: self-directed deflation; one varied callback to Asha's level line (item 21) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the professional installer permits herself imprecision where the work is finally hers — workshopped: no. (Level family closed: plant plus one variation.)

40 — "Twenty-nine days until Dana's key. Thirty-one days until Kessler's armory load-in." (line 161) — mechanism: paired mock-precision countdown, frame variation on item 1's twenty-six hours — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: converts the decision into schedule; every counted day runs toward an unheated room and net-45 money, so the counts price the choice rather than celebrate it — workshopped: no. (Restored item and the calibration's named epigram risk: parallel clauses at the final page. Survives because both counts are verifiable arithmetic off dates the chapter itself established (Dec 4 → Jan 2, Jan 4), and the chapter refuses the cadence close — the back-of-hand crating note, the washed cup, and the study left visible follow, so the last beat is logistics, not a stamp.)

Considered and excluded (not attempted comedy, each with its ground): Ruth's "This fall I noticed things. I kept them to myself and called it manners." … "Some of it was easier for me." (line 41) — confession, not wit; her one licensed sharp construction this appearance, spent on self-implication, delivery broken by the bag strap; counting it as comedy would misread the scene's sharpest beat. "June looked at the receipt so she wouldn't look at Ruth." (line 43) — stated motive, one clause, no joke. "The class is--" She stopped. "The class is the part that works." (line 43) — card-true fracture under exposure; earnest. Asha's "Send my name because I'm qualified. If you're trying to feel less bad, don't." (line 75) and June's "I did want to feel less bad." (line 77) — consent boundary and plain admission; the edge is ethical, not comic. "places where wanting had been scumbled over need" (line 99) — earnest inspection figure; with item 2 it fills the chapter's two-craft-figure ceiling; a comic reading would misprice it. The "Okay. No chair." thread (line 97) — rupture pain left unopened; correctly untouched by any comic item. "Torres." (line 103), "But." (line 111), and "Okay. Tell me the counter." (line 123) — brisk elicitation, flattened by the round-5 order; no longer attempts comedy. The printer "catching for half a second" (line 107) — literal waiting texture, and no caption on Nia's delivery. "The rectangle by the door was bare except for a strip of dust where the box had been." (line 55) — concrete absence, no gloss. "ask Chelsea office re: December crating" on the back of her hand (line 161) — action texture serving item 40's refused cadence.

DISTRIBUTION CHECKS:
- Density: 40 attempted items across ~3,100 words of a flag:reflective decision chapter — at the register's commitment (Henry-at-60% means spark without volley; nothing here runs longer than two comic turns). The comedy-free stretches are the right ones: Ruth's confession (lines 39–45, excluding the mercy beat that ends it), the Vandercook/key-number confession's frame (lines 109–123 carry one dark item, 28, which sharpens rather than relieves), and the study verification (lines 157–159).
- Source: character 35, character+situation 3 (items 7, 16, 20), situation 2 (items 26, 36), narrator-overlay 0. Overlay hunt performed on every narration-borne item (2, 3, 6, 19, 36, 37, 40): each is June's focalized optical/arithmetic idiom doing scene work; none is a wit-layer painted over the scene.
- Mechanism variety: deadpan family 10 (items 3, 8, 9, 22, 24, 27, 28, 29, 31, 37 — distributed across June, Sam, Asha, and Nia); deflation 4 (13, 24, 35, 39); repetition-with-variation 4 (14, 32, 38, 40); mock-precision 3 (1, 19, 40); literalization 2 (17, 28); reversal/priority-reveal 3 (12, 21, 36); plus singletons (implied escalation, understatement, optical incongruity, mutual-boundary, flat correction, scope-limiting mercy, non-answer, hyperbole grounded literal, timing undercut, enumerated verdict, metonymy, bathos, blank-equation payoff, price compression). Not MONOTONOUS: the deadpan share is the committed register and no two adjacent items repeat a mechanism in the same mouth.
- Emotion-displaced-into-logistics family: six instances (5, 10, 16, 17, 18, 34). This is the card's mandated engine (care without advice; June wants not to be managed), and each instance differs in function — invitation, routing, offer, equipment, thanks, exit. Watch-level concentration; Ch21–22 must not default to it, and no line captions the mode (the tracker's "achieved / fragile" condition verified: nothing in the text names or rates the no-advice behavior).
- Sweetness (the special check — the Tasker loss): the loss chain is comedy-free at every link — GOOD in her own handwriting (lines 9, 77), "The job's good, Nia." (109), "I know. That's why this is hard." (117), "That's a worse offer." / "It is." (127–129), the receipt turned to "the Marchetti header, the faded total" (129), the receipt folded into the notebook (155). The three comic items nearest the chain (28, 29, 30) each make the loss more expensive, not less: 28 is the trap stated flat, 29 prices her own counter down, 30 lets Nia win every column on the record. Item 38 was tested as consolation and is a cost (February = endurance). Not OVERSWEETENED.
- Cringe: none. No item plays to a generic workshop; nothing condescends to the O'Leary/Henry-at-60%/Morisaki reader; no art-world contempt; the one physical-comedy beat (14) is competence, not pratfall.

TRACKER / STANDING-CAUTION CHECKS (Ch17–20 obligations, verified against the current text):
- "go get your clause" — ABSENT (the clause is named at lines 9, 67, 69, and 135, always as material fact; the quip does not exist).
- "listing of my dreams" — ABSENT; line 151 inverts the listing convention instead ("worse than described").
- Excess coat joke — CLEAN at the licensed pair (lines 83, 155); "In February, also wear the coat" remains out; Ruth's buttoned coat (line 23) is a garment, not an instance.
- Third "Noted" — NONE; exactly two (lines 53, 131), a deliberate cross-speaker mirror; spent.
- Repeated door joke — NONE; one door joke (line 63); line 19 is mechanical instruction, and Sam's hip-opened door (line 55) is action.
- Ruth sharp-line cap — 1/1, spent on the confession; "We know how to deliver a box" and "We have a car" checked as second candidates and ruled flat logistics with no image.
- Ch19 inheritances — no stool-count joke (the chair move is blocking), no jar symbolism (the water jar is a literal paperweight, lines 7, 157), room/side/reach vocabulary rested.
- Ch18 ledger/debt narration figures — zero; every dollar in the chapter is literal decision material required by the card.
- "the way" connective — 1 (line 99, craft-specific), at the post-Ch17 cap.
- Nia polished-construction density — three shaped moments this chapter (the column line, the clause defense "I didn't put the studio clause in to sweeten it. I meant it.", the timestamp exit) against twelve pre-repair in Ch15; the clause defense was checked as comedy and ruled plain repair of a named fact, not a comic item.
- "not X. That's Y" template — two occurrences in dialogue (item 17's paired sentences; Asha's half-template "That's not me being polite," line 71); rest the shape in Ch21.
- Asha card-recitation — "Cheap enough to forgive" is the anchor spent nearly verbatim (item 25); future Asha appearances must not recite card samples.
- Level family — plant (line 71) plus one varied callback (line 161); closed.
- "I'm cargo" callback allowance — unused here; still available once.
- Blue-dish tether — used as practical object and reversed into the Tuesday promise (line 35); compliant and transformed.
- FEB = coat — paid (line 155) and spent; never again as tag or charm.
- Boring-parts idiom — spent (line 147); retire or vary.

SPECIAL CH20 CHECKS (dispositions indexed):
- Sam's "What's the freight?" — item 9, lands, non-portable in function.
- Sam's "That's not an opinion. That's a hand truck." — item 17, lands; template flagged for forward rest, not against this text.
- Asha's "the radiator is decorative" — item 22, lands; contrast pair with line 9 verified at two.
- Asha's "It's indoors." — item 24, lands.
- Asha's "Cheap enough to forgive." — item 25, lands in situ; recitation caution logged forward.
- Nia's column exchange — item 30, lands; the duet-polish interrogation is shown in the item.
- The final "Twenty-nine days / Thirty-one days" counts — item 40, lands; epigram risk defused by the refused cadence close.
- June's painting-distance figure — item 2, lands, cashed physically at lines 157–159; the scumble figure is non-comic and correctly so, holding the craft-figure ceiling at exactly two.
- Loss softening — not found (see sweetness check); the best comic beats sharpen cost (22, 24, 28, 29, 38, 40) or character (9, 12, 17, 25, 32).

VERDICT: **CLEAR**
All 40 items score funniness-2; sources are character/situation throughout with zero narrator-overlay; no item is portable in function and none fails the workshopped test after interrogation; mechanisms are varied across five mouths and the narration; the comedy consistently does the card's work — care rendered as logistics, the New York path priced honestly, the Tasker loss kept sharp at every link. Strongest item: 17 — "If the answer involves moving anything heavier than this, you have our number. That's not an opinion. That's a hand truck." — the chapter's engine (no advice, total help) compressed into equipment, priced by Ruth's flat "We have a car." and June's refusing "Noted." Weakest surviving item: 27 — "I ran the math with you three weeks ago. It wasn't close." — the flattest deadpan in the chapter, surviving on record-keeping authority rather than wit; any flatter and it would leave the inventory the way "Okay. Tell me the counter." already has.

REVISION ORDERS:
None. No item in this inventory scores funniness-1, reads portable in function, or fails the workshopped test; every restored comic-risk item named in the round-7 charge was interrogated in place and holds in the current text. Forward obligations logged in TRACKER / STANDING-CAUTION CHECKS bind Ch21–22, not this text: rest the "not X. That's Y" template; no third "Noted"; no card-sample recitation from Asha; no new coat, boring-parts, or FEB-callback; level family closed; spoken-timestamp single-use. The chapter is committable on comedy.
