INVENTORY:
1 — "One open box of kitchen things she kept taking the colander back out of. […] She took the colander out of the box again and left it in the dish rack." (line 5) — mechanism: repetition-with-variation (physicalized indecision) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (built from the half-packed-since-September apartment and the lease plot) — dramatic work: the stay/leave question made object; the dish-rack placement is a micro-decision — workshopped: no
2 — "Sam had written *crooked is dynamic* and Ruth had written *it's crooked.*" (line 9) — mechanism: deflation via flat correction — source: character (Sam's generous reframing vs. Ruth's documentary exactness — "with a photo proving it" is hers) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — the joke text could transplant, but the bit is their established push/precision dynamic, and the flyer is the kiss flyer — dramatic work: cohort life continuing without June; puts the flyer in circulation before June looks at it — workshopped: no
3 — "Forty of those existed. Some were now in laundromats." (line 9) — mechanism: deadpan bathos — source: character (June's counting consciousness; "laundromats" is supplied by Ruth's photo two sentences prior, not imported wit) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: makes the kiss's publicness arithmetic and inescapable — workshopped: no (punchline syntax considered; see verdict)
4 — "Luis cooked for eleven and we are four." (line 11) — mechanism: numeric incongruity / specificity — source: character (Mara's hosting math) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the invitation June declines; plants the surplus that becomes the pie — workshopped: no
5 — "It would even be true if she started a painting before Friday." (line 13) — mechanism: self-serving technicality, self-aimed — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: keeps the lie legible as a lie (plain-speech floor: deflection visible as deflection) — workshopped: no
6 — "Mara sent back a turkey and a heart and asked nothing else, and that was the part that cost." (line 13) — mechanism: register collision (emoji lightness against the wound of being let off the hook) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: Mara's non-pursuit becomes the pressure — workshopped: no
7 — "She plugged the phone in by the stove, in the kitchen, where it charged badly" (line 17) — mechanism: deadpan displaced logic (the bad outlet as moral architecture) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: distance from Theo's text managed physically, not narrated — workshopped: no
8 — Foil runner: "a man balancing a foil pan on both palms so it would not crease" → "There's pie under the turkey. Don't tilt it." → "the foil level the whole time like she'd been told" (lines 21, 71, 85) — mechanism: repetition-with-variation, setup/payoff — source: situation turning character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — the Thursday image alone would be city-generic filler; the Sunday payoff (June, who refuses everything, obeying a pie instruction) binds it to this book — dramatic work: Thursday isolation; Sunday care accepted in the only form June can carry — workshopped: no
9 — "dana says the radiator works if you kick the valve. bring a sweater if you go see it." (line 35) — mechanism: deadpan practical comedy — source: character (Asha's hustle-math register per voice card) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Dana/Ridgewood/Kessler network) — dramatic work: keeps the New York path material and unglamorous — workshopped: no
10 — "She'd told a lie to avoid a dinner so she could paint a room she was also avoiding. Then she rinsed the bowl." (line 43) — mechanism: self-aimed irony deflated by action — source: character (June's perception→judgment→self-rebuke rhythm) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: names her avoidance without a feelings report — workshopped: no (closest call in the chapter; the avoid/avoiding symmetry is composed, but the composing consciousness is June's and "Then she rinsed the bowl" refuses the quotation)
11 — "*Keep it!! I have two. That was the plan.*" / "You told me that so I'd take it." / "*and it worked. ok.*" (lines 53–57) — mechanism: gag exposure / confession-without-shame (repetition-with-variation on the Ch03 plant "take the scarf, I brought two") — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: reveals the scarf as deliberate tether, lets June end the loan, and lets Mara own the trick — workshopped: no
12 — "her free hand already out, palm up, resigned to it" (line 61) — mechanism: anticipation gag (Mara pre-conceding the return she's dodged for six weeks) — source: character — funniness: 1 — portable: no — dramatic work: condenses the loan's history into one gesture — workshopped: no — **BLOCKING**: the gesture is the joke; "resigned to it" is a narrator caption explaining the attitude the palm already shows. Under-committed by being labeled — the chapter's only overlay fleck besides "the street told her" (line 21, which the foil payoff redeems).
13 — "Are you eating?" / "I'm painting." (lines 67–69) — mechanism: deflection-as-answer — source: character (June's compression) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: states her condition by omission; Mara answers it with food, not words — workshopped: no
14 — "There's pie under the turkey. Don't tilt it." / "It's a dish I want back." (lines 71–75) — mechanism: logistics-as-love deadpan; transparent-pretext variation (the scarf trick redeployed minutes after being confessed) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: converts a gift into an obligation that holds the Tuesday door open — workshopped: no
15 — "Ruth has opinions about wall spacing and I need another painter at the table." (line 75) — mechanism: in-chapter callback (the crooked flyer) plus recruitment — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: a seat literally held for June at showcase prep — workshopped: no
16 — "the Corolla's hazards blinked once" (line 79) — mechanism: synecdoche deadpan (Luis present entirely in his signal idiom) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: puts a clock on the goodbye without anyone naming it — workshopped: no
17 — "October," Mara said. "It's almost December." (lines 81–83) — mechanism: literalist deflation — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: refuses the elegy June is trying to perform; "I'm glad you came" lands plain after it — workshopped: no
18 — "The chair did nothing. It was wood at an angle, viewed from the door." (line 89) — mechanism: deflation of pathos — source: character (June refusing her own sentiment) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: sets up the face-down decision; keeps the fifth study from becoming a message — workshopped: no
19 — "sending it tonight would have nothing to do with ceiling height" (line 31) — mechanism: self-aimed irony, pretext named — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: catches the flight-toward-contact impulse and parks it in drafts — workshopped: no

Special-watch items checked and absent: no "hostage exchange," no "sleeping in shifts," no "zero did not last," no "commits to the bridge" anywhere in the text (verified by search). No narrator-overlay wit around Tasker — the ledger is kept flat ("Tasker: $49,500, W-2, health insurance after ninety days") — or around the studies ("It was a study, nine by twelve, and when it was done she clipped it to the board's edge"). Strongest workshopped counter-candidates considered and passed: item 3 (punchline syntax, but built from on-scene materials) and item 10 (symmetrical setup, but in June's self-rebuke slot and deflated by action).

Tracker checks: scarf personification (cap spent Ch08) — zero instances; the scarf is washed, de-pilled, folded, literal throughout. Chair-count comedy (spent Ch16) — "She didn't count them" (line 41) touches the family only by refusal and plays as grief, not joke; recommend the tracker mark the family retired. "the way" connective (Ch17 4/4 cap) — zero instances. Keys cluster (Ch17 at cap) — one mention, "boxes, keys, the emptied rectangle" (line 5), recalled content of Theo's Ch16 canvas, transformed, not a new key beat. "stop coming" / stranger clusters — absent. Engineered-pretext family (Ch06 ×2) — the dish-pretext is the third instance book-wide but is exposure-then-reuse with both parties seeing it, which is arc movement, not default; log it. Mara-cites-Luis (no third before arc shift) — "Luis made too much" / "Luis is circling the block" are host logistics, not the translation tic. Ruth editorial-sharp cap — "it's crooked" is flat correction, not an editorial-sharp line; cap unspent.

Distribution: mechanisms varied — repetition-with-variation ×4 (items 1, 8, 11, 14), deflation ×4 (2, 17, 18, plus 16's synecdoche-adjacent restraint), deadpan self-audit ×4 (5, 7, 10, 19), specificity ×2 (4, 9), bathos ×1 (3), register collision ×1 (6), deflection-as-answer ×1 (13), callback ×1 (15). Sources: character 17, situation-turning-character 1, narrator-overlay 0 surviving as load-bearers (the two overlay flecks are named in items 8 and 12). The deadpan self-audit count (4) is at the ceiling for a solo-June chapter; the next June chapter should not default to it. Joke-free zones are grief-calibrated and provable: the sharp beats carry no jokes — "Okay. No chair." (line 15) stands bare; the back-stair memory (line 95) and the face-down studies (line 93) are unjoked; "That was the whole plan, and it required no one" (line 7) is left flat where overlay wit would have been easy. Not OVERSWEETENED: the comedy never touches June's grief to soften it — it presses against her withdrawal from outside (Mara, Asha, the group chat), and the pie is converted to obligation, not consolation. No CRINGE.

VERDICT: CLEAR — majority funniness-2, character-sourced, mechanisms varied; density is at the register's normal level despite the rupture, because the comedy is correctly quarantined to cohort contact while the solo passages stay dry on purpose. Strongest item: "*Keep it!! I have two. That was the plan.*" / "You told me that so I'd take it." / "*and it worked. ok.*" (lines 53–57). Weakest surviving item: "She'd told a lie to avoid a dinner so she could paint a room she was also avoiding. Then she rinsed the bowl." (line 43) — it sits at the workshop line and survives on the bowl.

REVISION ORDERS:
1. Item 12 (line 61), funniness-1, blocking: "and came out three minutes later with the tote full of dishes and her free hand already out, palm up, resigned to it." Cut "resigned to it." The pre-emptive palm is six weeks of refused returns condensed into one gesture, and "You really washed it," she said, taking the fold confirms the resignation one line later; the caption explains a joke the blocking already lands. Keep "her free hand already out, palm up" and end the sentence there.
