Marisol’s game shelf looks like a showroom. Every box she owns has an aftermarket laser cut insert, foam or plywood, custom fitted trays for every token type, and when she opens a box to set up it looks less like unpacking a game and more like opening a very organized toolbox. I own zero of these inserts. My components live in the plastic baggies they shipped in, sorted by type, rubber banded if I’m feeling ambitious, and I’m aware that coming from someone who spends her actual job hours worrying about the correct long term storage of paper, this looks like a genuine contradiction, and I’ve had to think about why it isn’t one, at least to me.

The honest answer is that an insert is optimizing for something I don’t actually care that much about, which is setup speed and shelf aesthetics, at the cost of something I care about more, which is not spending forty dollars and an entire evening on a third party product for a box that already works. Marisol’s insert collection genuinely does save her time, five extra minutes at setup adds up over years of Tuesdays, and I understand the appeal completely. It’s just not the trade I want to make. I’d rather spend that time and that money on actually playing something new than optimizing the box of something I already own.

There’s a smaller, pettier reason too, which is that I like the baggies specifically because they’re a little bit of a hassle. Digging through a bag for the right token is a tiny, low stakes ritual, thirty seconds of friction before the actual game starts, and I’ve noticed I enjoy games slightly less when setup is instant and frictionless, the same way I think I’d enjoy a book slightly less if someone had already highlighted all the good parts for me. I want a small amount of my own effort involved before the good part starts. That’s clearly not a universal preference, Marisol would tell you the friction is just friction, nothing romantic about it, and she’s probably right for her and wrong for me.

We’ve had this argument, lightly, more than once, usually while she’s rifling through a beautifully organized foam tray and I’m still finding the last token in a sandwich bag three feet away. She’s never once actually convinced me and I don’t think I’ve come close to convincing her either. It’s a strange thing to hold a mild, permanent disagreement about with a close friend for years running, and also, honestly, kind of nice. Not everything needs to resolve.