# Audit: Comedy Doctor — Chapter 11

id: comedy_doctor | owner: claude | tier: risk
chapter: `output/chapters/chapter_11.md` ("Categories") | register: comic, guide-mandated every chapter | target reader: warm/precise/lightly-comic per READING_GUIDE §2 — O'Leary warmth, Henry at 60% banter density, Morisaki smallness; never sitcom rhythm, never banter for banter's sake
provenance checked: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_11.round_01.md` (raw), `chapter_11.initial_draft_assessment.md`, `chapter_11.claude_tic_audit.md` (orders verified executed: aphorism pair "Labels are for folders…"/"label is a caption…" replaced with hospital/HR material; "room with its sound turned off" and "cursor patient, room patient" cut; emoji removed; "showing at the end of the class" removed; "hands that knew frames" → "frame help"; "Theo's hands at the bolt" → "Theo at the bolt")
gate: `quality_gate_report.md` — open 0, allowlisted 0, WATCH 52
tracker: `output/tics.md` — relevant rows: Ch05 Ben "not a personality" **spent**; Ch04 correction/label-accuracy motif active-then-halved; 06–10 evaluative `, which` family **monitored-at-cap, no new captions**; Ch11-on hands max once foreground (compliant — hands here are all literal carriage); cross-chapter grep run for repeats (results below)

Stance: skeptical professional editor. The chapter has been through Codex integration; the job here is residuals, and there are residuals — two spent/hardened running gags survived integration untracked, one portable item, and two new instances of the at-cap `, which`-caption family.

---

`INVENTORY:`

1 — "Tell whoever did the toning I said so." / "That's Aiello senior. Nobody tells him anything." (l.5–7) — mechanism: deflation (June's signature care move — precise praise — bounced off a family wall) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (closest-to-stock shape in the chapter; survives because the setup is June's named care move and the line states the chapter's pressure — information never reaching the person it concerns) — dramatic work: opens the category/information theme; Aiello texture — workshopped: no
2 — DOM in pencil on masking tape; "June respected the system: accurate, cheap, removable." (l.7) — mechanism: deadpan craft appraisal — source: character (installer's eye) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: plants the label system the whole chapter cashes (AUTH box, 'don't push' label, penciled cubbies — a *removable* label against names penciled in) — workshopped: no (the draft's "which June respected as a labeling system" was correctly de-captioned)
3 — "occupied roughly the width of a parked van" + "the aisle could hold three people if all three had agreed about it in advance" (l.9) — mechanism: trade-eye scale measurement + consent-personified blocking — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no (van-width is how an art handler actually sizes a space; the consent clause pre-states Priya's lease position before she enters) — dramatic work: licenses every stool/pegboard blocking beat that follows — workshopped: no
4 — "The shop felt older than the block. Probably not. It was older than Dom." (l.9) — mechanism: hyperbole self-audited down to the verifiable minimum — source: character (June's perception→judgment→self-rebuke rhythm) — funniness: 2 (low end; gate flagged amplification-echo here; cleared as deliberate deflation, not echo) — portable: no — dramatic work: refuses atmosphere narration on principle — workshopped: no
5 — "It's twelve blocks of Saturday… one sheet of board you'll charge me a dollar for." / "I'm not charging you the dollar. It's the principle of the dollar." (l.17–21) — mechanism: haggling inversion (concedes the dollar, defends the principle) — source: character both ways — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: establishes June's glass authority (her "cargo" identity) and plants the l.123 payoff — workshopped: no
6 — "had typed *I'm in* before she reached the part about timing, which she was choosing to call efficiency" (l.23) — mechanism: rationalization deflation — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: cohort-belonging without admission — workshopped: no — **but**: new evaluative `, which` caption against the 06–10 monitored-at-cap family (order 4)
7 — "they both said it at the same time, and it was Ruth's." (l.25) — mechanism: long-marriage synchrony with a precise tail — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: whose-number-is-the-number, the chapter thesis in one beat — workshopped: no
8 — "Put 'authorized.'" / "Box is small." / "Abbreviate," Ruth said. / "Dom wrote AUTH and seemed satisfied with all parties." (l.35–41) — mechanism: bureaucratic compression — source: situation + character (Abbreviate is a copyeditor's whole biography in one verb) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the box literally too small for the relationship, paid off verbatim at l.149 — workshopped: no
9 — "Nobody owed Dom anything further… which was the nicest thing about him." (l.51) — mechanism: praise-by-absence — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: Dom's finite form against HR's appetite for affidavits — workshopped: no — **but**: second new `, which` caption (order 5)
10 — "I am still angry about the chair." / "You should be." (l.61–63) — mechanism: synecdoche displacement (the chair = the six hours) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: keeps hospital fury concrete; Ruth validates without conceding the argument — workshopped: no
11 — "HR sent me a sympathy email with a flower in the subject line." (l.59) — mechanism: institutional-absurdity specificity — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no (welded to the affidavit list and "paper household") — dramatic work: the joke indicts the apparatus — sharpens, doesn't cushion — workshopped: no
12 — Ben enters "holding his phone out in front of him as if it were leaking"; "Can I read an email out loud in a store. Is that allowed." / "People do worse," Dom said. (l.71–75) — mechanism: anxious over-permission + flat shop absolution — source: character ×2 (the unpunctuated questions are the anxiety) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: imports the lease pressure; Dom holds the warmth floor — workshopped: no
13 — "Sit. Not symbolically. The stool beats pacing." (l.77) — mechanism: pre-deflated metaphor — source: character — funniness: **1** — portable: no — dramatic work: care via furniture — workshopped: **yes**. Cross-chapter grep: Ch04 l.13 "Sit here. Not symbolically. The chair's better for your back", Ch06 l.69 "Stand here. Not symbolically. You can actually see all three from here", now Ch11. **Third instance, identical mechanism, only the noun varies; the voice card's sample line has hardened into a catchphrase and the tracker has no row for it.** BLOCKING.
14 — "No elevator, but the email and I have agreed not to discuss it." (l.79) — mechanism: treaty-personification of dread — source: character (fear negotiated, not solved — rhymes with the 'don't push' label) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: housing fear as managed avoidance — workshopped: no
15 — "'Sunny study'—" photo of "a closet with an outlet and half a window." (l.79) — mechanism: listing-euphemism deflation — source: situation — funniness: **1** (smile-shaped, pre-owned: the closet-as-study reveal is the single most rehearsed joke in NYC apartment fiction) — portable: **yes** — could run unchanged in any apartment-hunt scene in any book — dramatic work: the listing lies, which the rent figures already establish — workshopped: no. BLOCKING.
16 — "I checked the walk to the J. Twice, which I know is not a personality." (l.85) — mechanism: self-deprecating tag — source: character — funniness: **1** — portable: no — dramatic work: duplicates what items 17–18 do better — workshopped: **yes**: this is the voice card's example line transcribed, and the gag is tracker-**spent** — Ch05 l.47 "I timed last week's poses. I'm aware that's not a personality," with the Ch05 tics row reading "future Ben self-deprecation needs a new shape." This is the old shape, near-verbatim. BLOCKING.
17 — "I saw the spreadsheet," Priya said. "It has tabs." / "It has three tabs." (l.87–89) — mechanism: understatement-as-indictment + defense-by-precision (correcting the count concedes the charge) — source: character both — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: planning-as-fear seen kindly; the card phrase is feed, the punchline is new — workshopped: no
18 — "Credit-wise I'm older. I have a long boring history. It's my best quality." (l.93) — mechanism: credential inversion (the boast is the wound) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: housing precarity made his dullness an asset; sets up the occupant asymmetry — workshopped: no. **This is the new Ben self-deprecation shape the tracker demanded — which is exactly why item 16's recycled tag is unnecessary.**
19 — "Occupant. Like the cat we don't have. I'd live there on his paperwork." (l.95) — mechanism: category deflation, absurd comparandum immediately cashed into plain statement — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (leases literally class occupants with pets; the *nonexistent* cat is her argument — there is no shared household yet) — dramatic work: converts the form word into lived asymmetry; Sam's hallway line lands on it — workshopped: no. Focused check: not too cute — the cute clause is collected by the chapter's hardest housing sentence two beats later.
20 — "the occupant negotiates from the hallway." (l.97) — mechanism: consequence concretized in Sam's spatial idiom — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: pivots the scene from comedy to stakes in one image — workshopped: no
21 — "Set your fourth reminder." / "It's set. It's labeled 'don't push.'" / "It's a good label." (l.107–111) — mechanism: shared-system intimacy; label-theme repetition-with-variation — source: character both — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the reminder is pre-labeled with her own request — tenant anxiety converted into couple care without resolving the disagreement — workshopped: no
22 — "That's not a vote. I'm cargo." / "Cargo's allowed an opinion about light," / "Cargo just gave it." (l.115–119) — mechanism: self-categorization deflection, refused, conceded in third person — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no ("cargo" extends the chapter's box system to June herself, and her care-move praise of the north light sits inside it) — dramatic work: June files herself as freight at the exact moment she acts like a member; Priya declines the filing — workshopped: no, work shown: this is the chapter's closest brush with three-beat button symmetry, but each line changes the state (gift → invitation → concession), the exchange is followable as text, and third-person self-reference is June's documented compression-under-exposure. Strongest counter-candidate considered for workshopped; held.
23 — photographed the corner samples "for no reason I can defend" (l.121) — mechanism: self-aware compulsion — source: character — funniness: 2 (low end) — portable: no — dramatic work: exits still spiraling, gently — workshopped: no
24 — "Dom's twine was the good kind, and June revised her opinion of the dollar." (l.123) — mechanism: callback/payoff; judgment revised on evidence — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: closes the haggle warmly; June updating a small verdict against the big verdict she refuses to update at l.149 — workshopped: no
25 — "Two trips," June said. "Because glass." (l.127) — mechanism: noun-as-sufficient-argument compression — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: competence as goodbye — workshopped: no
26 — "Depends what's broken." / "Mm… That was my answer for about twenty years." (l.133–135) — mechanism: joke-shaped dodge matched and outbid by plain confession — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: deflection made visible *as* deflection per §2, then priced — workshopped: no
27 — "Either Odile had called ahead or the tote was famous." (l.139) — mechanism: deadpan false dichotomy — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June has standing at Marchetti Rooms and nobody had to name it — workshopped: no
28 — "FRAME HEROES X3 tell theo thank you BOTH for the schlep." (l.147) — mechanism: register collision + warm misattribution — source: character (Mara's inclusion reflex filling in the second line again) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: maximal — triggers the typed-and-deleted "he wasn't" and is cashed explicitly at l.149 ("Mara had just done it again from a couch in Queens") — workshopped: no. Flag: "X3" in caps reads like a leftover from the ordered emoji removal rather than Mara typing "x3" — verify intent (order 6).

**Distribution checks.**
- *Density:* 28 items in ~2,300 words of an off-Tuesday chapter; the register's commitment is met. Not DRY, not THIN.
- *Mechanism variety:* deflation family leads (8) — that is the book's register, and it is interleaved with compression (8, 25), callback (24), synchrony (7), personification (14), synecdoche (10), register collision (28), understatement (17), inversion (5, 18). Not MONOTONOUS.
- *Source:* character ≈23, situation ≈4, narrator-overlay 0 — the two `, which` captions (items 6, 9) are June-voiced; their defect is tic-shape, not overlay. Focused check answered: **Dom/Aiello comedy is character/situation throughout** — every Dom laugh is in Dom's mouth or in June's craft appraisal of his shop; the tiny-shop blocking (one stool, pegboard lean, aisle-consensus) is situation comedy that the lease scene physically inhabits.
- *Sweetness:* NOT OVERSWEETENED — checked hardest, per the focused brief. The hospital/HR block contains exactly two laugh-shaped items (10, 11) and both cut toward the institution, not away from it: "I was forty feet from the desk" (l.53) is played entirely straight; "I'm not arguing the six hours, Sam. I'm saying the other version has its own waiting room" (l.67) ends the argument unresolved; Ruth's "That was my answer for about twenty years" (l.135) declines to let June's joke land as a joke; and the closing interiority (l.149–151) is joke-free — June exits "carrying nothing" with no comic cushion. The comedy frames the sharp beats; it never pads them.
- *Cringe:* none. Nothing here embarrasses the O'Leary/Morisaki reader; Mara's caps are in-character texting, not authorial mugging.
- *Tracker state to log on commit:* "Not symbolically" family at 3 (Ch04/Ch06/Ch11) — retire after order 2 executes; "not a personality" attempted reuse of spent gag — order 1; new `, which` captions ×2 against the at-cap family — orders 4–5; "I'm cargo" first comic use (Ch08 "rolled cargo" was literal), allow at most one varied callback then retire; "principle of the dollar" + label-theme spent as Ch11 spine — Ch12 must not inherit label jokes (the Ch04 correction/label-accuracy motif gets no new fuel from this). Routing note, not a comedy defect: Ruth carries two metaphor-sharp lines this appearance ("build a paper household for HR," "its own waiting room") against her card's one-per-appearance cap; both are serious-register and neither oversweetens, so I am not ordering a cut here — the Dialogue Doctor should adjudicate which one stands.

**CHAPTER VERDICT: CLEAR** — 25 of 28 items funniness-2, character/situation-sourced throughout, one portable item, mechanisms varied, and the serious material stays sharp. Strongest item: «"It's set. It's labeled 'don't push.'" / "It's a good label."» (l.109–111) — the chapter's whole category argument, resolved into care without resolving the dispute. Weakest surviving item: «The shop felt older than the block. Probably not. It was older than Dom.» (l.9) — the landing fact is trivially small, which is the point, but it is the only item whose cut would cost nothing. CLEAR does not waive the blocking rule: three items stand blocking below.

`REVISION ORDERS:`

1. **(Item 16, blocking: workshopped + funniness-1 + tracker-spent)** «I checked the walk to the J. Twice, which I know is not a personality.» (l.85) — verbatim revival of the Ch05-spent gag the tracker explicitly retired ("future Ben self-deprecation needs a new shape"), lifted from the voice card's example line. Cut the tag; end the speech at "I checked the walk to the J. Twice." The self-awareness is already carried, better, by the tabs exchange (item 17) and "It's my best quality" (item 18) — the chapter has the new shape; delete the old one.
2. **(Item 13, blocking: workshopped + funniness-1; untracked gag at 3)** «Sit. Not symbolically. The stool beats pacing.» (l.77) — third near-identical deployment of Sam's card line (Ch04 chair, Ch06 spot, Ch11 stool); the formula is now a catchphrase, which is exactly what a sample line must not become. Cut the middle sentence: "Sit. The stool beats pacing." carries the same care and the same Sam. Add a tics.md row retiring "Not symbolically" at 3.
3. **(Item 15, blocking: portable + funniness-1)** «"Sunny study"—» photo of «a closet with an outlet and half a window» (l.79) — interchangeable NYC-listing filler; any apartment-hunt scene in any book owns this joke. Replace the generic closet reveal with a falsity specific to *this* listing that the chapter can use — strongest available material is already on the page: June's l.115 verdict on the fourth-floor north light and the "window wall facing the back of the lot." Make the listing's lie about *light* (e.g., the "sunny" room is the one facing the airshaft), so June's north-light correction later in the scene quietly out-argues the broker. Alternatively, cut the turn-the-phone-around beat and let Ben's flat enumeration of the numbers carry it — his fear is in the arithmetic, not the closet.
4. **(Item 6, tracker breach: at-cap `, which` caption family)** «…which she was choosing to call efficiency» (l.23) — keep the joke, kill the shape: break it out of the relative clause, e.g. "…before she reached the part about timing. She was choosing to call that efficiency."
5. **(Item 9, tracker breach: same family)** «…which was the nicest thing about him» (l.51) — same operation: "…and Dom did not appear to want anything further. It was the nicest thing about him." No new `, which` captions are available to this chapter; the 06–10 family is at cap.
6. **(Item 28, verification)** «FRAME HEROES X3» (l.147) — confirm "X3" is Mara's own typing and not an artifact of the ordered emoji removal. If intended, lowercase "x3" reads as a person texting; caps "X3" reads as a placeholder the reader will trip on. One-character fix either way.

The chapter is not committable while orders 1–3 stand; orders 4–6 should ride the same revision touch.
