INVENTORY:

1 — "The tote strap quit on the third-floor landing… chin clamped on the top spine to keep the stack from fanning" (line 3) — mechanism: physical indignity via specificity — source: situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no (nine gray-spined Odile catalogs, the Ch14 loan made literal weight) — dramatic work: the protected catalog thread enters as burden, not prophecy — workshopped: no
2 — "This took four minutes to establish and involved every flat surface she owned." (line 5) — mechanism: mock-precision / deadpan measurement — source: character (June timing her own avoidance) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (eight inches vs. ten and a half, the thirty-by-forty table) — dramatic work: pre-loads Nia's rent-math line; the apartment argues for Philadelphia before Nia does — workshopped: no
3 — "She told herself that was about weight distribution." (line 7) — mechanism: self-deception named deadpan — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the paper-slipped volume) — dramatic work: protects the Ch17 slip thread while showing June lying to herself in her own register — workshopped: no
4 — "not because she was hiding it but because that was how the jacket landed, and if she moved it now she'd be admitting she'd noticed" (line 9) — mechanism: denial-logic spiral — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (umber cuff mark) — dramatic work: the desire tell carried without naming Theo — workshopped: no
5 — "Pen that worked, established by scribble." → "took the pen that worked" → "in case the rest of the answer came from the same pen. It didn't come." (lines 9, 109, 113) — mechanism: deadpan procedure, then repetition-with-variation darkening into deflated magical thinking — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: preparation-as-fear set up comically and paid off uncomically at the close — workshopped: no
6 — "It had been unopened for twenty-six hours. It occupied one narrow strip of sill." (line 11) — mechanism: mock-precise audit of avoidance — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (mineral spirits jar from Ch14) — dramatic work: keeps the Theo pressure live in one object — workshopped: no
7 — "both of which were real, neither of which had taken until eight-forty" (line 13) — mechanism: self-indicting parallelism — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: confesses the two-day stall the packet requires — workshopped: no (the symmetry is the self-audit, not quotation bait)
8 — "I had a thing with panels." / "For two days." / "They were complicated panels." (lines 17–21) — mechanism: escalating lame excuse under deadpan challenge — source: character (both; Nia's old-peer candor) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Marchetti panels) — dramatic work: guilt and peer history established in three lines — workshopped: no
9 — "Or the other way around, depending on which grant we're answering to." (line 23) — mechanism: institutional candor / deflation — source: character (Nia's money-specifics tic) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: plants renewal fragility honestly, which the later "evaporate" beat needs — workshopped: no
10 — "fix the boring things before the artists arrive so they don't fix them wrong" (line 27) — mechanism: dry workplace truth — source: character (Nia card register) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: states the art-adjacent trap in job language so June's later realization isn't a thesis line — workshopped: no
11 — "Marco's been opening it with a screwdriver." + "This is why I called you and not the other names on my list." (line 33) — mechanism: specificity-horror plus recruitment candor — source: situation/character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Vandercook gripper bar) — dramatic work: baits June's competence and sets up item 12 — workshopped: no
12 — "Either way it's an afternoon." June heard herself and stopped. "Hypothetically." (line 35) — mechanism: self-betrayal / timing reversal — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the chapter's trap (she answers the press before the wall) demonstrated as a joke instead of stated — strongest comic-dramatic fusion in the chapter — workshopped: no
13 — "Pay's not glamorous. That's one of its virtues." (line 41) — mechanism: paradox deflation — source: character (sanctioned Nia card anchor, used once) — funniness: 2 — portable: no in context — dramatic work: money candor keeps the offer serious — workshopped: no
14 — "'I can do math,' June agreed." + "it came out the way Nia knew it would" (line 43) — mechanism: capitulation irony in the tag — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (margin math beside two invoices) — dramatic work: June already persuaded on material grounds; temptation rises — workshopped: no
15 — "You're being very fair about the part where it might evaporate." (line 53) — mechanism: polite-form irony — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (two grants and a city line item) — dramatic work: invites Nia's real-reasons speech without June asking an exposed question — workshopped: no
16 — "I've watched you walk into rooms where the job was already going wrong and make it stop going wrong, and I have a building full of jobs about to go wrong." (line 55) — mechanism: rhetorical triple, repetition-as-flourish — source: character-intended, reads composed — funniness: 1 — portable: no — dramatic work: the respect beat that makes leaving rational — workshopped: YES. Three "going wrong"s in one sentence is punchline syntax; the third occurrence adds no information the second didn't. This is the most polished survivor of the construction family Dialogue Doctor round 1 flattened (twelve instances). BLOCKING.
17 — "I know you're taking notes. I can hear the pen." (line 75) — mechanism: caught-in-the-act deadpan — source: situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: Nia names June's displacement without therapy-speak; sets up the no-pressure speech — workshopped: no
18 — "Noon. Eat lunch after." (line 79) — mechanism: clipped imperative care / button — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: converts the deadline to humane scale without softening it — workshopped: no. Checked against the Odile-only quotability license: one button line in a full call is not high-density, and the care-through-logistics is Nia's card, not Odile's diagnosis register. Passes.
19 — "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?" / "That's a hold." (lines 85–91) — mechanism: peer-shorthand craft insult, then refused deflection — source: character (both) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (installer world, torque as character judgment) — dramatic work: June dodges with craft, Asha converts the dodge into a second clock; the joke is the plot — workshopped: no. Sitcom-cadence check run: the shape is setup/punch/tag, but the tag ("So that's a yes?") refuses the laugh and forces stakes, and "That's a hold" is a non-answer that costs June something. Not sitcom.
20 — "340/mo, no heat after 10pm, you'd love it, it's terrible." + "send pics of the terrible room" (lines 93–94) — mechanism: affectionate paradox plus adoption — source: character (Asha card: "Not pretty. Cheap enough to forgive") — funniness: 2 — portable: no — the clause "you'd love it, it's terrible" is a known comic shape, but it is welded to the rent figure and the heat schedule, and June's pickup is plot (she acts on the New York lead) — dramatic work: keeps the material NY path alive mid-temptation — workshopped: no
21 — "have the gripper bar apologizing by Friday and a wet canvas in the back room by the Friday after" (line 95) — mechanism: hyperbole / object personification — source: character (June's admiring read of Asha) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Tasker's specific broken machine) — dramatic work: makes Asha's fitness for the job concrete, arming the referral weight ("not hers to spend yet") — workshopped: no. Personification-family note logged below.
22 — "June, who had sworn off looking at it, looked at it." (line 99) — mechanism: instant self-contradiction — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: shape is near-portable, instantiation (forty flyer copies, 8x10, Mara's crop) is not — dramatic work: flyer pressure re-enters mid-decision — workshopped: no
23 — "doing the thing she'd been trying to caption for a week: not surprised… Surprised she could have explained." (line 99) — mechanism: inversion / deflation — source: character ("caption" is literal in her label-draft week) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: names the kiss's reality sideways, which is June's only legal way to name it — 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." (lines 101–105) — mechanism: deadpan bureaucratic ruling, craft definition, use-as-action — source: character (Theo's logistics tenderness; June's label precision) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the 41-chair census for `After Class`) — dramatic work: advances the chair-count thread, keeps Theo warm and offer-ignorant, drafts actual label language — workshopped: no. Two checks run and passed: (a) zero-tolerance dialogue-diagnosis — "That's going in the label notes" does not rate her phrasing; it is the sanctioned form, doing something with what he heard (the label drafts are an established task); (b) "Coats are people who left their position marked" is definition-shaped, but its quotability is diegetically consumed — it is written to be a label note, on the page, by the characters.
25 — "She handled it. She washed the two dishes." (line 107) — mechanism: bathos — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: coping-by-task made visible at its true size — workshopped: no
26 — "facing them at the wall had been melodramatic and the slip was just paper" (line 107) — mechanism: callback self-rebuke (varies item 3 instead of repeating it) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: un-deceives one layer while the slip thread stays sealed — workshopped: no
27 — "so it couldn't slide off, fold shut, or otherwise excuse itself" (line 115) — mechanism: zeugma sliding into personification; June's avoidance transferred to the receipt — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the Marchetti receipt under the unopened jar) — dramatic work: pins the deadline where she will see it from bed, stove, and door; "excuse itself" is self-diagnosis — workshopped: no

Items considered and excluded from inventory, with reasons: "Her handwriting had gotten neat. It did that when the room would not line up." (line 29) is a planted tension tell that recurs at line 61, not a comic attempt — no turn, no laugh intent. "She knew. She left it." (line 107) and "a woman at the press who would not turn around" (line 113) are the chapter's sharp beats and correctly joke-free. "If the city line item holds, the six months becomes a year and the year becomes a job" (line 51) was the strongest counter-candidate for a second workshopped flag — anadiplosis chain — but each clause carries distinct contract information (renewal mechanics) and there is no laugh intent; it passes where item 16 does not, because item 16's third repetition is pure flourish. Nia's four-sentence fairness speech (line 55) was checked against the Ch14 cap on prepared persuasion speeches: that cap is Theo-specific, and Nia's preparation is diegetic (she is making a formal offer she wrote), but its most composed clause is exactly the blocked triple.

Distribution checks. Density: 27 items across ~3,100 words fits the lightly-comic register, with comedy deliberately thinning in the final quarter as the temptation takes weight — the last full joke is item 27, and the closing image is unsoftened. Source: ~23 character, 4 situation, 0 narrator-overlay — the dry summary lines (items 2, 6, 7) are June auditing herself, which is her card's interiority rhythm, not a wit-layer painted over her. Mechanism variety: mock-precision 4, self-deception/denial 3, deflation/paradox/bathos 6, candor 3, escalating excuse 2, repetition/callback 3, personification/hyperbole 2, timing reversal 1, inversion 2, others singletons — varied, no MONOTONOUS finding, though the mock-precision cluster is front-loaded (4 of its instances in the first quarter; sanctioned this chapter as June's call-station displacement, advisory below). Sweetness: the jokes stop before the press-woman image, the referral weight ("not hers to spend yet"), and the close; nothing sweetens what the chapter wants sharp; the offer is never made unserious — items 12 and 14 make it more serious by showing June already inside it. Cringe: none; nothing condescends to the target reader (the O'Leary-warm, Morisaki-quiet cozy reader who wants character-true observation at ~60% Henry banter density). Nia and Asha both joke and neither is a device: Nia gets the fairness speech and "send me someone good"; Asha gets concrete leads and the uncomic referral consequence. Inherited-Ch14 check: no paired echo confirmations, no public-document rationalization, no logistics-joke spine inherited — the measurement comedy is apartment/call-station, card-sanctioned as June's tension tell, not Ch14's flyer/panel logistics. Sitcom text-cadence check: Priya's text is flat logistics; the two comic text exchanges both end on cost, not tag lines.

Verdict: **CLEAR** — majority funniness-2 (26 of 27), character/situation-sourced throughout, non-portable, mechanisms varied. Strongest item: #24, the coat-count exchange — "one occupied by a coat that I ruled counts" / "Coats are people who left their position marked" — character-sourced on both ends, advancing two live threads while keeping Theo offer-blind. Weakest surviving item: #20's pickup clause "send pics of the terrible room" — smile-shaped on its own, carried by the dramatic work of June acting on the New York lead. One blocking finding (item 16) stands; per the blocking rule the chapter is not committable until the order below is executed.

REVISION ORDERS:

1. (Item 16, blocking — workshopped, funniness 1.) "I've watched you walk into rooms where the job was already going wrong and make it stop going wrong, and I have a building full of jobs about to go wrong." Break the constructed triple; the third "going wrong" is flourish, not information, and it is the last survivor of the zinger family Dialogue Doctor already flattened from this call. Keep the testimony and the building clause — they carry Nia's respect and her need (voice card: brisk, practical, money/time specifics, no polish). Fix: cut the middle repetition so the echo lands once, e.g. "I've watched you walk into rooms where the job was going wrong and make it stop. I have a building full of jobs about to go wrong." Two occurrences, same recruitment logic, no punchline syntax. Do not soften the content of the compliment; de-workshop the shape only.

Tracker notes (non-blocking, for `output/tics.md`): (a) object-personification instances this chapter = 2 ("gripper bar apologizing," line 95; receipt "excuse itself," line 115) — both outside the capped folder/panel and scarf families and both earned here, but the book has now capped object-agency comedy twice; log toward a book-level watch so it does not harden into the default closer move. (b) Mock-precision/measurement deadpan ≈ 5–6 instances front-loaded in the first quarter — sanctioned this chapter as the call-station tension tell; the next June-solo chapter should not open on measurement comedy again. (c) Theo's "ruled" (line 101) is a single legal-register word in a text message; the Ch07/Ch08 clerical register stays spent — log only, no action.

CLEAR
