Dear Eric: Could you settle an argument? My husband has a friend and coworker who he has known for many years. I’ve met his wife a few times and although we are friendly, we’ve never done anything just the four of us.

My husband will hang out with his friend and has invited the couple to our home when I’m not home. On one occasion, they came over to get ideas for their huge backyard project. My husband even helped them several times by working on their backyard and he helps them out from time to time whenever they need help with something.

A few months ago, the wife had a huge birthday party at their home to show off their backyard and we were not invited. A few weeks after the party, the husband told my husband that we were originally on the invite list but then removed prior to the party. The reason being that a couple of the wife’s friends found out that we were on the list, and they told her if I was coming, they would not attend. Ouch!

Skip forward a few weeks, and my husband got a call from this couple asking for a ride home from a bar because they had a dog with them and couldn’t get an Uber ride. So, my husband dropped everything and helped them out. I was angry and hurt. My husband is good enough to help them out whenever they need it, but we’re not good enough friends to be invited to a party? My husband doesn’t see what the big deal is.

— Feeling Used

Dear Feeling Used: What’s going on with these catty friends-of-the-friend-of-your-husband who don’t want you at parties? I have so many questions. You don’t know the wife well, but her friends dislike you enough to get you booted from a party? I’m presuming you know the backstory here, but it sure raises my hackles.

I suspect that your husband’s hackles remain low, however, because he probably sees the friendship as one that started at work and expanded from there. So, perhaps, to his mind it doesn’t involve you.

Now, we don’t live in your husband’s mind. I can see why the disinvitation would sting and it’s odd that your husband didn’t take offense on your behalf. Because, honestly, it’s on his behalf as well. This goes beyond him “defending your honor”; it’s just empathy.

It’s one thing to have friends of one’s own. That’s normal and healthy. It’s quite another thing to have friends who are actively anti-social to one’s wife. The question you’re asking your husband is “why is this OK with you?” Even if it seems inconsequential to him, he should recognize the way this whole situation made you feel.

Dear Eric: A few years ago, I sold my extra car as I was retiring in good financial shape and simplifying my expenses. Having an extra EZ Pass toll device, I gifted it to my father and his third wife, my stepmother.

My father passed away a year ago and my family have all been very inclusive with my stepmother. She lives just across the George Washington Bridge from New York City and will go into the city multiple times a week or make other toll eligible trips.

A single trip is $15. She has two adult daughters of her own, who have acknowledged that their mother is their responsibility. She does have limited finances. Last year the toll charges came to almost $2,000 and this year it is trending toward $1,000.

As a retiree, I simply never thought the gift of an EZ Pass would add up to this amount every year. While I am in a better financial position than my 79-year-old stepmother, do I discuss my concerns with her? Do I raise the topic with her daughters to suggest they pick up the charges? Do I offer a fixed amount subsidy? Or do I grin and bear the gift that keeps on giving?

— Tolled Out

Dear Tolled Out: Fifteen dollars? My eyes bugged out of my head like a cartoon character. I don’t know for whom that bell tolls, but it certainly isn’t me.

The beauty, and perhaps danger, of EZ Pass is right there in the first two letters. It’s so easy. You zip right through, without a second thought. It’s likely that your stepmother is zipping back and forth across the bridge without $15 charges racking up in her mind. So, reach out and let her know what’s happening.

Tell her that you’re happy to keep paying for the gift, but that you’d love to find a reasonable budget for it. Hopefully, she’ll be more than understanding and come up with a solution that works for both of you, be it less frequent trips, public transportation or sending you a check every month.

(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)

Week 10 of high school football in the Orlando area includes a busy Thursday night, followed by traditional Friday night lights games.

Here’s the list of scheduled games. Rankings are from the Sentinel Super 16 coaches poll.

Note that teams on top are at home.

Check back on game nights as we update this list with scores as play progresses.

Varsity content editor Buddy Collings can be contacted by email at bcollings@orlandosentinel.com. 

Thank God for the Orlando Magic.

Never, ever have we been so ready for an NBA season to begin.

Traditionally in Orlando, this is the time of year when we are engrossed in the college football season; when our conversations are dominated by rankings, conference standings and championship aspirations. But this year, the college teams we most care about — UCF, Florida and Florida State — are all mediocre or worse and we are left to discuss quarterback controversies, coaching changes and player opt-outs. The anticipation that filled the air in August has turned into frustration by mid-October.

Which means it’s time to jump on the bandwagon of the Orlando Magic — a young, up-and-coming playoff team that seems as if it is willing to give it that ol’ college try even more than our college teams themselves. Many of the Magic’s players are young enough to be in college and have that old-school chemistry, camaraderie and culture that college programs used to have before the non-stop transfer portal reshaped the landscape.

“I think that’s what people are falling in love with,” says former Magic player and current team TV analyst Jeff Turner. “It really is a collegiate environment. They care about each other. They root for each other. They want to be around each other. I’ve been around the NBA for a long time and, quite honestly, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

Who would have ever thought that a bunch of NBA multi-millionaires would be more loyal to their team and their town than college athletes? But that’s certainly the case in today’s world where college football and basketball have become more transient than the seasons themselves, where players drift like windblown autumn leaves from one program to another.

Many sports fans are fed up with the fractured state of college athletics and long for the days when athletes loved their team as much as we do. In many ways, these Magic players have that college brotherhood and fraternity that we rarely see in today’s professional sports.

“Team bonding is not something you see a whole lot of in the pros,” Magic All-Star Paolo Banchero says. “I think that’s what makes us a little different. We just love being around each other, spending time together, whether it’s on the road, at dinner or at a UCF football game.”

These young stars aren’t just co-workers showing up to collect a paycheck. They’re growing together, learning together, and playing for each other. There’s a sense of unity and team spirit that reminds us of the best days of college sports. When you talk to these players, you get the feeling that they genuinely like each other. They’re hungry, they’re humble, and they’re always referencing team goals over individual accolades.

Even better, the Magic, for the most part, are organic and homegrown, built through the draft and player development and not through splashy trades and free-agent signings. Give Jeff Weltman, the Magic’s president of basketball operations, coach Jamahl Mosley and their staffs a ton of credit for assembling a roster filled with players who are not only talented, but tough, tenacious and team-oriented. They not only play together, they go to concerts and events together, they attend each other’s charitable functions and camps and they all — on their own — gathered for a player-run retreat, bonding session and conditioning mini-camp during the offseason.

“It’s bigger than just the game of basketball. It’s being able to connect with each other on and off the court,” Mosley says.

Adds Weltman: “Our guys have an amazing relationship with each other. You can’t predict chemistry. All you can do is bring in good people and hope that they develop it themselves. And these guys have really put a lot of time into that. They believe in one another, they enjoy one another and I think they’re getting to the point now where they can even criticize one another.”

With college football’s disappointments piling up seemingly on a weekly basis, I can sense Orlando sports fans are ready to start shifting their attention to the NBA. For more than a decade, we typically wait until after football season to start paying attention to the Magic — and, by that time, they were usually 10 games below .500.

But after years of rebuilding, there’s a sense that there might be something special about this version. The Magic shocked everybody last year when they won 47 games and made the playoffs after most of the experts picked them to finish among the worst teams in the league.

And they’ve only just begun. Last season, the Magic became the first NBA team in 25 years for which the top three scorers — Banchero, Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs — were 22 years old or younger. Banchero also became the youngest player in NBA history to ever lead his team in the top three statistical categories (scoring, rebounding and assists).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Orlando sports fans should completely give up on the college football season and abandon UCF, Florida and Florida State. The loyalty for our college teams runs much too deep for that.

But right now, in this moment in time, the Magic offer something the Gators, ‘Noles and Knights simply cannot:

A chance to hope and dream and believe in a team on the rise and a future without limits.

We’re all eyewitnesses to history being made — the wrong kind of history.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is engaged in an all-out effort, unprecedented in its scope in Florida history, to defeat two ballot initiatives on abortion and recreational marijuana. What he’s doing is unethical, unconstitutional and possibly illegal.

Voters will vote yes or no on Amendments 3 and 4. They should be able to do so without overt political interference from the governor’s office.

To be clear, DeSantis has the right, and in my view, the responsibility, to forcefully express his opinions about constitutional amendments or anything else on the Nov. 5 ballot. It’s what leaders are supposed to do, and he’s the duly elected governor of this state.

So go right ahead, Governor. Raise money, run hysterical TV ads, stand on the corner, wave signs and accuse the other side of anything you can think of. That’s politics.

But that’s not what DeSantis is doing.

Determined to win at all costs, he refuses to play by the rules and works to rig the system, and nobody can stop him except the courts — and you, the voter.

DeSantis trampled all over the First Amendment by threatening to arrest TV station executives who aired ads in support of Amendment 4 on abortion rights.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee ordered DeSantis to drop threats of criminal charges, calling it “unconstitutional coercion” for the state to censor political speech protected by the First Amendment.

“The government cannot silence the truth about Florida’s extreme abortion ban. It’s a deadly ban that puts women’s lives at risk,” said Lauren Brenzel, director of the Yes on 4 campaign. “This ruling is a powerful reminder that Floridians will not back down in the face of government intimidation.”

No one has to believe political ads or to watch them. But no one has the right to tell TV stations they can’t show them.

Do you want a politician deciding what you can see on TV?

DeSantis has intimidated voters who signed petitions to get Amendment 4 on the ballot, sending state law enforcement agents door-to-door in Fort Myers and elsewhere, an outrageous act of intimidation.

He has weaponized state agencies, which rely on your tax dollars, to oppose the amendment.

He has made sweeping, unsubstantiated accusations of ballot petition fraud by Amendment 4 proponents, which prompted opponents to ask a court to invalidate the referendum results before people vote. The lawsuit was filed in Orange County.

All that came after DeSantis cheated by stacking a state review panel, the Financial Impact Estimating Conference, with his former budget director and, with the aid of a political ally in the Legislature, a Heritage Foundation member who contributed to the Project 2025 manifesto.

A majority on the panel, long respected for a nonpartisan analysis, concocted a politically motivated financial impact statement full of innuendoes and what-ifs, intended to stoke fears over restoring reproductive freedom for Florida women. It’s propaganda, masquerading as unbiased information.

The impact statement, which appears on the ballot, is twice as long as the 75-word question itself. As voters see it for the first time, they are outraged by such an obvious attempt to rig the result.

Even if you oppose Amendment 4 on moral or religious grounds, you could vote for Amendment 4 as a way to register your outrage at DeSantis’ interference in a legitimate, state-certified ballot initiative.

Secretary of State Cord Byrd, a DeSantis appointee, certified that Floridians for Reproductive Freedom had gathered the required 891,523 signatures. But as the ballot question gained political momentum, the state produced an “interim report” alleging widespread petition fraud.

The report was based in part on a review of 41 petition forms in Palm Beach County, out of 77,000 submitted. “They only looked at 41,” said Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections Wendy Link.

Ballot petition fraud, such as forging the signatures of dead people, is a crime, and wrongdoers obviously should be punished. But the state needs to prove it.

This extremely important question, which will affect the women of this state for generations, is for you the voter to decide. It should not be decided by a governor who plays dirty.

Steve Bousquet is Opinion Editor of the Sun Sentinel and a columnist in Tallahassee and Fort Lauderdale.