# Audit: Comedy Doctor — Chapter 11 (Repair Verification Pass)

id: comedy_doctor | owner: claude | tier: risk | mode: verification of repairs against `chapter_11.comedy_doctor.md` orders 1–6
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
repair memo: `chapter_11.comedy_repair_memo.md` (claims all six orders executed) | gate: PASS, open 0, allowlisted 0, WATCH 51
tracker: `output/tics.md` — Ch05 "not a personality" **spent**; "Not symbolically" family at 3 pending retirement row; 06–10 evaluative `, which` family **monitored-at-cap, no new captions**; Ch11+ hands max once foreground (compliant — all carriage here is literal)

Stance: skeptical professional editor. The memo's claims were checked against the text, not taken on faith; cross-chapter greps re-run; provenance of one residual checked against `output/drafts/claude/chapter_11.round_01.stream.jsonl`. Five of five ordered repairs are genuinely executed with no equivalent-shape substitution. One pre-existing instance of the at-cap `, which`-caption family survived both the original audit and the repair untouched (l.149), and one tracker-logging obligation from order 2 is still open. Neither is a blocking-rule item; both get orders below.

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## ORDER-BY-ORDER VERIFICATION

**Order 1 — spent "not a personality" gag (VERIFIED FIXED).** Ben's speech now ends «The difference is six hundred forty a month, which is in the spreadsheet. I checked the walk to the J. Twice.» (l.85). Grep across `output/chapters/`: the phrase survives only in its original Ch05 home (l.47); zero instances in Ch11. Equivalent-tag sweep of every Ben line in the chapter: «the email and I have agreed not to discuss it» (l.79), «It's my best quality» (l.93), «It's labeled 'don't push'» (l.109), «for no reason I can defend» (l.121) — all four were in the pre-repair inventory (items 14, 18, 21, 23), none is a new self-aware "I know that's X" tag, and the ordered replacement shape (item 18, credential inversion) now stands alone as Ben's self-deprecation. The terminal «Twice.» reads as deadpan admission without the workshopped tag. No substitution occurred. Adjacent check: «, which is in the spreadsheet» was considered against the at-cap caption family and **held** — it is spoken dialogue, a factual pointer not an evaluative caption, Ben-voiced per card ("route, form, backup, timing"), and it is the feed line the tabs exchange (item 17) punishes. Not the family shape.

**Order 2 — "Not symbolically" catchphrase (VERIFIED FIXED IN TEXT; TRACKER ROW STILL OPEN).** L.77 now reads «Sit. The stool beats pacing.» Grep across all chapters: the formula survives only at Ch04 l.13 and Ch06 l.69 — the Ch11 third instance is gone, and no variant ("not literally," "not a metaphor," etc.) was substituted anywhere in the chapter; Sam's remaining lines (l.91, 97, 125, 137) are clean. The surviving line is plain care, no longer a comic item — which is what the order specified, not a defect. **However**: order 2 also directed "Add a tics.md row retiring 'Not symbolically' at 3," and `output/tics.md` still ends at the 06–10 rows with no Ch11 entries. The repair memo does not mention it. If tics rows are appended at commit, this must not be dropped — order R2 below.

**Order 3 — portable closet-as-study joke (VERIFIED FIXED).** The generic reveal is replaced at l.79: «He turned the phone so the room could see a narrow room facing the back of the lot, bright at the ceiling and gray everywhere a desk would go.» This is the order's strongest option executed: the listing's lie is now about *light*, and June's l.115 verdict («Fourth-floor north light is real light… It doesn't lie at noon and it doesn't quit at three») quietly out-argues the broker using the same window wall — the image is welded to this lot, this listing, and June's trade eye. Portability re-test: the bright-ceiling/gray-desk observation cannot move to another book without bringing June's painter-optics with it. Non-portable. Light-motif cap checked since my order created this beat: the l.79 photo and the l.115 verdict are one setup/payoff thread, and the l.3 transom stripe is craft-literal glass inspection — defensible as one deliberate light-image, but the motif auditor should confirm. One line-edit blemish, not a comedy item: «the room could see a narrow room» repeats *room* across the clause — order R3.

**Order 4/5 — the two `, which` captions (VERIFIED FIXED; ONE PRE-EXISTING FAMILY INSTANCE FOUND STANDING).** L.23 now reads «…before she reached the part about timing. She was choosing to call that efficiency.» and l.51 «…and Dom did not appear to want anything further. It was the nicest thing about him.» Both jokes kept, both shapes broken, exactly as ordered. But a whole-chapter sweep for the family found a third instance neither the original audit nor the repair touched: «Ruth had matched it with twenty years of her own, **which was worse**» (l.149) — narration, June-voiced, evaluative judgment delivered in the exact relative-clause caption shape the 06–10 tracker row holds at cap with no new instances available. Provenance checked: the clause exists verbatim in `chapter_11.round_01`, so it is a missed pre-existing instance, not repair contamination — but missed is not cleared. The dry pricing is good and should survive; the shape cannot. Order R1.

**Order 6 — Mara's x3 (VERIFIED FIXED).** L.147: «FRAME HEROES x3 tell theo thank you BOTH for the schlep.» Lowercase «x3» now reads as a person counting her three frame heroes mid-text; the surviving caps (FRAME HEROES, BOTH) are Mara's emphasis, in-card for her inclusion reflex — and «BOTH» is the misattribution doing the chapter's heaviest dramatic work, cashed at l.149 («Mara had just done it again from a couch in Queens») and triggering the typed-and-deleted «he wasn't». No placeholder residue.

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## RE-RUN: FULL BLOCKING SWEEP OF CURRENT TEXT

`INVENTORY:`

1 — "Tell whoever did the toning I said so." / "Nobody tells him anything." (l.5–7) — mechanism: deflation of June's care-move praise — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: opens the information-never-reaching-its-person theme — workshopped: no
2 — DOM on masking tape; "June respected the system: accurate, cheap, removable." (l.7) — mechanism: deadpan craft appraisal — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: plants the label system (AUTH, 'don't push', cubbies) — workshopped: no
3 — "width of a parked van" + aisle holding three "if all three had agreed about it in advance" (l.9) — mechanism: trade-eye measurement + consent personification — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: pre-states Priya's lease position — workshopped: no
4 — "older than the block. Probably not. It was older than Dom." (l.9) — mechanism: hyperbole self-audited down — source: character — funniness: 2 (low; gate amplification-echo WATCH re-checked, held as deliberate deflation) — portable: no — dramatic work: refuses atmosphere — workshopped: no
5 — "twelve blocks of Saturday" / "principle of the dollar" (l.17–21) — mechanism: haggling inversion — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: plants l.123 payoff — workshopped: no
6 — "She was choosing to call that efficiency." (l.23) — mechanism: rationalization deflation — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: belonging without admission — workshopped: no — **repaired, caption broken**
7 — "they both said it at the same time, and it was Ruth's." (l.25) — mechanism: synchrony with precise tail — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: chapter thesis in one beat — workshopped: no
8 — "Put 'authorized.'" / "Box is small." / "Abbreviate." / AUTH (l.35–41) — mechanism: bureaucratic compression — source: situation/character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: paid off verbatim l.149 — workshopped: no
9 — "It was the nicest thing about him." (l.51) — mechanism: praise-by-absence — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: Dom's finite form vs. HR's affidavits — workshopped: no — **repaired, caption broken**
10 — "I am still angry about the chair." / "You should be." (l.61–63) — mechanism: synecdoche displacement — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: hospital fury kept concrete — workshopped: no
11 — "sympathy email with a flower in the subject line" (l.59) — mechanism: institutional-absurdity specificity — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: indicts the apparatus — workshopped: no
12 — phone held "as if it were leaking"; "Can I read an email out loud in a store. Is that allowed." / "People do worse." (l.71–75) — mechanism: anxious over-permission + flat absolution — source: character ×2 — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: imports lease pressure — workshopped: no
13 — "Sit. The stool beats pacing." (l.77) — **exits the comic inventory**: plain care line post-repair, no comic mechanism attempted, none required — care via furniture remains and is Sam's
14 — "the email and I have agreed not to discuss it" (l.79) — mechanism: treaty-personification of dread — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: managed avoidance, rhymes with 'don't push' — workshopped: no
15 — "'Sunny study'—" against bright-at-the-ceiling, gray-where-a-desk-would-go (l.79) — mechanism: euphemism deflated by shown evidence — source: situation/character — funniness: 2 (quiet, by design) — portable: **no** — dramatic work: plants June's l.115 north-light verdict, the broker out-argued by trade knowledge — workshopped: no — **repaired, was the portable item**
16 — "I checked the walk to the J. Twice." (l.85) — mechanism: deadpan terminal admission — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: fear rendered as arithmetic — workshopped: no — **repaired, spent tag cut**
17 — "It has tabs." / "It has three tabs." (l.87–89) — mechanism: understatement-as-indictment + defense-by-precision — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: planning-as-fear seen kindly — workshopped: no
18 — "I have a long boring history. It's my best quality." (l.93) — mechanism: credential inversion — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: precarity made his dullness an asset; now Ben's sole self-deprecation shape, as the tracker demanded — workshopped: no
19 — "Occupant. Like the cat we don't have." (l.95) — mechanism: category deflation, comparandum cashed plain — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: form word converted to lived asymmetry — workshopped: no
20 — "the occupant negotiates from the hallway." (l.97) — mechanism: consequence in Sam's spatial idiom — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: pivots comedy to stakes — workshopped: no
21 — "It's labeled 'don't push.'" / "It's a good label." (l.107–111) — mechanism: shared-system intimacy — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: care without resolving the dispute — workshopped: no
22 — "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 — dramatic work: June files herself as freight while acting like a member — workshopped: no (re-checked: each beat changes state; held as before)
23 — "for no reason I can defend" (l.121) — mechanism: self-aware compulsion — source: character — funniness: 2 (low) — portable: no — dramatic work: exits still spiraling — workshopped: no
24 — "Dom's twine was the good kind, and June revised her opinion of the dollar." (l.123) — mechanism: callback — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: small verdict revised against the big one she won't revise at l.149 — workshopped: no
25 — "Two trips," June said. "Because glass." (l.127) — mechanism: noun-as-argument compression — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: competence as goodbye — workshopped: no
26 — "Depends what's broken." / "That was my answer for about twenty years." (l.133–135) — mechanism: dodge matched and outbid by confession — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: deflection visible as deflection, 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: unnamed standing — workshopped: no
28 — "FRAME HEROES x3 tell theo thank you BOTH for the schlep." (l.147) — mechanism: register collision + warm misattribution — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: maximal; triggers the deleted "he wasn't" — workshopped: no — **repaired, x3 lowercased**

**Blocking sweep result: zero funniness-1, zero portable:yes, zero workshopped:yes.** The three prior blocking items were resolved by cut (16), cut (13), and replacement-with-owned-material (15); none was softened into politeness, and no equivalent shapes were smuggled in elsewhere.

**Distribution re-check.** Density: 26 live items in ~2,300 words — the two repairs that removed jokes (13, 16) cost nothing the chapter needed; items 17–18 already carried that work. Not DRY/THIN. Mechanisms: still varied (deflation family interleaved with compression, callback, synchrony, personification, synecdoche, inversion, register collision). Sources: character ≈22, situation ≈4, narrator-overlay 0. Sweetness: unchanged — repairs were cuts, not cushioning; the hospital/HR block and the l.149 close remain sharp and joke-free. Cringe: none.

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**CHAPTER VERDICT: CLEAR** — all five prior orders verified executed in the text with no equivalent-tag substitution; blocking rule re-run across the full current chapter generates zero blocking findings. Strongest surviving item: «"It's set. It's labeled 'don't push.'" / "It's a good label."» (l.109–111). Weakest surviving item: «The shop felt older than the block. Probably not. It was older than Dom.» (l.9) — still the only cut that would cost nothing; still not worth a touch on its own.

`REVISION ORDERS:` (residuals — none is a blocking-rule item; R1 is a tracker-cap breach and must ride the next revision touch, not wait for assembly)

R1. **(l.149, tracker breach: at-cap `, which` caption family, missed by prior audit and repair)** «Ruth had matched it with twenty years of her own, which was worse.» — narration-voiced evaluative caption in the exact shape the 06–10 family holds at cap with zero new instances available; verified pre-existing in `round_01`, so it was missed, not introduced. Keep the pricing, break the shape, same operation as orders 4–5: e.g. «…and Ruth had matched it with twenty years of her own. That was worse.»
R2. **(process: order 2 logging incomplete)** Append the Ch11 tics.md rows the prior audit specified at commit, none of which yet exist: retire «Not symbolically» at 3 (Ch04/Ch06/Ch11-removed); log the blocked «not a personality» reuse attempt against the Ch05 spent row; log «I'm cargo» first comic use (one varied callback max, then retire); log «principle of the dollar» + label-theme spent as Ch11 spine, no Ch12 inheritance.
R3. **(l.79, line-edit, non-comic)** «He turned the phone so the room could see a narrow room» — *room/room* collision inside the repaired beat; vary one («so the others could see a narrow room»). Route to line edit with R1's touch.

The chapter is committable on comedy grounds; R1–R3 ride the next revision touch and the commit checklist respectively.
