`INVENTORY:`

`1 — "This took four minutes to establish and involved every flat surface she owned." (line 5, plus the 8"/10.5"/30x40 survey) — mechanism: specificity overload / deadpan measurement of a small defeat — source: character (June's optical exactness) + situation (Ch14 loan) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (nine gray-spined catalogs signed out in Theo's ledger, returned column blank) — dramatic work: converts the catalog loan into physical pressure and keeps the Ch17 danger object on the floor of every scene — workshopped: no`

`2 — "She told herself that was about weight distribution." (line 7) — mechanism: deadpan self-deception, narration repeating the lie straight — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the paper-slipped volume is this book's armed device) — dramatic work: protects S-CATALOG-01 while showing June managing it by furniture logic — workshopped: no`

`3 — stack turned to face the wall → "facing them at the wall had been melodramatic and the slip was just paper" (lines 7, 107) — mechanism: repetition-with-variation; the gag completes an arc (turn, deny, reverse, re-deny) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: double duty; "faced to the wall" quietly rhymes with Theo's hidden portrait (S-PORTRAIT-01) without winking — workshopped: no`

`4 — call station: "Pen that worked, established by scribble." (line 9) — mechanism: deadpan over-preparation, bureaucratic verb on a trivial act — source: character (packet: "her preparation should look like work, because that is how she handles fear") — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Asha's lead scrap, umber cuff in the same inventory) — dramatic work: fear rendered as procedure — workshopped: no`

`5 — jacket cuff "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-as-tell, the negation performing the thing it denies — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (umber mark from the Ch13 kiss week) — dramatic work: keeps romance pressure on-page with Theo absent, per packet — workshopped: no, though it sits on the "not X but Y" shape; here the shape is the joke (the lie is quoted, not narrated), so it survives`

`6 — "I had a thing with panels." / "For two days." / "They were complicated panels." (lines 17–21) — mechanism: lame-excuse double-down, deflation by flat repetition — source: character + situation (Nia's old-peer candor; June's Ch13 embarrassment debt) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the panels are the Week 5 pickup) — dramatic work: dramatizes the two-day stall instead of summarizing guilt; Nia's "For two days." keeps it sharp, so the joke does not make the call unserious — workshopped: no`

`7 — gripper diagnosis: "Marco's been opening it with a screwdriver." / "That's a spring or it's twenty years of grease… Either way it's an afternoon." June heard herself and stopped. "Hypothetically." (lines 31–35) — mechanism: competence self-betrayal with timing reversal; the laugh is her catching herself already inside the job — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Vandercook gripper bar, Marco) — dramatic work: the chapter's whole argument staged as a beat — the offer tempts exactly the part of her that fixes other people's presses; sets up the press-vs-wall close — workshopped: no`

`8 — "'I can do math,' June agreed." + the margin already done (line 43) — mechanism: deadpan concession; the tag "agreed" surrenders while the line pretends to push back — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: proves the offer's material pull is real, not strawman — workshopped: no`

`9 — "Noon. Eat lunch after." (line 79) — mechanism: practical anticlimax button — source: character (Nia: deadline plus bodily practicality, no emotional pressure, per card) — funniness: 2 — portable: no as placed (it is literally advice about the noon deadline) — dramatic work: ends the call warm without softening the clock — workshopped: no, but flagged: two-word imperative + flick is Odile's compression; the book already polices Theo poaching Odile's quotability (Ch02 tracker). One instance, function distinct (deadline, not feeding). Watch, do not let Nia acquire a button habit.`

`10 — "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: shop-talk misdirection; June answers the wrong half of the question and Asha names the dodge — source: character (work-peer shorthand, both cards) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (overtightening is installer-world, Dario is named inventory) — dramatic work: every message carries plot (Kessler terms, the hold, the slot) — workshopped: no. Sitcom-cadence check run: the volley is quick, but no message is a pure reaction beat; information density per line is what the Asha card specifies. Passes.`

`11 — "you'd love it, it's terrible" / "send pics of the terrible room" (lines 93–95) — mechanism: anti-sell paradox + echo pickup — source: character (Asha's "Not pretty. Cheap enough to forgive." register, varied not reused) — funniness: 2 — portable: no ($340 Ridgewood, no heat after 10pm) — dramatic work: keeps the self-owned New York path live (S-NY-01) inside a joke instead of an errand — workshopped: no; the comma-splice run is authentic text cadence, not punchline syntax`

`12 — flyer reaction: "not surprised. That was the trouble with it. Surprised she could have explained." (line 99) — mechanism: deadpan reversal — source: character — funniness: 2 (lands as the dry wince this register trades in, not a laugh; that is the intended scale) — portable: no — dramatic work: admits the photo's truth sideways without a feelings report — workshopped: no, ruled after deliberation: the symmetry is composed, but "caption" is literally her current task (label drafts), which anchors the wit in scene work. This was the chapter's closest call besides item 15.`

`13 — coat-count exchange: "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 adjudication + reframe-as-ruling — source: character on both ends (Theo's ledger earnestness; June's label logic) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (41 chairs, six p.m./nine-forty counts, After Class) — dramatic work: heaviest in the chapter — the line is simultaneously label-notes craft and June's own situation (umber cuff, receipt: her positions are all marked) — workshopped: no, ruled after testing: the maxim shape is the artifact being drafted in-scene, and Theo files it as label notes, confirming in-world function. Watch only: "ruled" is one clerical verb from the register spent in Ch07–08; cooldown orders were chapter-scoped and Ch13 verified clean, so a lone dialogue instance passes — no second clerical term may join it.`

`14 — mineral spirits jar: "It had been unopened for twenty-six hours." → moved onto the receipt → "the jar she hadn't opened" (lines 11, 115, 117) — mechanism: running object gag, repetition-with-variation across three instances, each mutating (counted avoidance → paperweight → final clause) — source: character/situation (Theo's jar, the kept mark) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: carries the kiss thread and then physically pins the deadline; new gag, no tracker cap, arcs cleanly within the chapter — workshopped: no`

`15 — "so it couldn't slide off, fold shut, or otherwise excuse itself" (line 115) — mechanism: triadic escalation, two literal verbs swerving into object personification — source: narrator-overlay (the receipt is granted evasive agency; the wit belongs to the sentence, not to anything June does) — funniness: 2 as written — portable: no — dramatic work: redundant; the unopened jar pinning the deadline already says this — workshopped: YES — blocking. Two grounds: (a) curtain-line triad with a third-item swerve is composed-for-quotation cadence (the tracked three-part-cadence shape weaponized as a punchline); (b) tracker breach — secret-object personification was capped at 4/4 in Ch08 and voice_check_10 holds the family at zero until rupture. The receipt carrying the offer June is hiding from Theo is exactly a secret object; giving it agency reopens the family early, and the quip pats the ending the packet ordered to land on the object, unanswered.`

`16 — "in case the rest of the answer came from the same pen. It didn't come." (line 113) — mechanism: deadpan superstition, callback to "pen that worked, established by scribble" — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the rational station exposed as ritual right before the close — workshopped: no`

**Distribution checks.** Density: 16 items across ~2,600 words in a solo apartment chapter — meets the every-chapter comic-register commitment without crowding the temptation. Mechanism variety: seven distinct mechanisms (specificity overload, self-deception deadpan, repetition-with-variation, competence self-betrayal, misdirection, anti-sell paradox, adjudication/reframe). The deadpan-avoidance family (items 2, 3, 5, 14, 16, plus item 6's excuse) runs ~6 instances — at ceiling but each instance mutates and the catalog-stack strand closes its own arc, so not MONOTONOUS; no inheritance of this as default narration into Ch16 (Theo POV protects this automatically, but log it). Sweetness: the sharp beats — the struck-through *what happens if no* (line 11), the press-vs-wall realization (lines 67–69), "not hers to spend yet" (line 97), "a woman at the press who would not turn around" (line 113) — are all joke-free; the offer is never made unserious (strongest counter-candidate checked: item 6 opens the call on a joke, and Nia's "For two days." immediately re-sharpens it). Nia and Asha are never devices: Nia's comedy is recruiting candor, Asha's is leverage with a slot to fill, and both lines of comedy give them their own stakes. Cringe: none; nothing misjudges the warm-precise reader. Ch14 inheritance sweep: no paired echo confirmations, no prepared Theo persuasion speech, no logistics-comedy spine (the one logistics bit, item 13, mutates into adjudication); retired families ("not a personality," "I'm cargo," alleged cherry, water gag, *Not symbolically*) all absent. Nia zinger density post-repair: ~6 smile-shaped constructions across a long call, each speakable and job-specific ("fix the boring things before the artists arrive so they don't fix them wrong"); the most polished survivor, "the six months becomes a year and the year becomes a job," reads as grant-narrative forecast-speak and stays inside her card.

**Verdict: CLEAR** — majority funniness-2, overwhelmingly character/situation-sourced (one narrator-overlay item, and it is the blocking finding), non-portable throughout, mechanisms varied. Strongest item: #7 — "That's a spring or it's twenty years of grease… Either way it's an afternoon. … Hypothetically." — the comedy is the chapter's thesis performed: her competence walks into the trap before her caution can. Weakest surviving item: #11's "send pics of the terrible room" — smallest scale in the chapter; survives because the echo pickup is doing real plot work (keeping the New York path live) at exactly the scale it attempts.

`REVISION ORDERS:`

1. Item 15, line 115 — "so it couldn't slide off, fold shut, or otherwise excuse itself." Failure: workshopped curtain-line triad + reopened secret-object personification family (held at zero until rupture per Ch08 tracker and voice_check_10). Order: cut the third clause. End the sentence at the physics — "so it couldn't slide off or fold shut." — and let the placement carry the wit; the unopened jar pinning the written deadline is already the joke, and the final paragraph's "the jar she hadn't opened" (line 117) keeps the irony legitimately, sourced in object fact rather than narrator flourish. Do not replace the clause with a softer caption; the packet's close is the object, unanswered, and it is stronger uncaptioned.
