Madame Psychosis’s show; the HmH (pp. 192–193)

The family's ritualized farewell, run week after week like liturgy. The whole post-prandial routine is fixed: C.T. drops a plate in the kitchen and bellows, Avril brings Mario his hell-Jell-O squares, tells Hal it's been "reasonably nice to see him outside les bâtiments sanctifiés," and asks "casually" what his plans are; Hal always answers "Make trouble," and Avril always responds, "mock-stern," "Do not, under any circumstances, have fun" — which "Mario still always finds clutch-your-stomach funny, every time, week after week." The exchange is affection encoded as fixed performance, a family that expresses love through the flawless repetition of a bit. Hal finds the routine "ritualistic and almost hallucinatory"; Mario finds it reliably hilarious. The same scripted tenderness reads to one son as an uncanny loop and to the other as warmth — which is the family's whole condition in a single recurring goodbye.