Dear Eric: Often when I’m eating at a restaurant or cafe, I’ll notice other tables leaving half-finished food to be thrown out. In these situations, I’m tempted to either ask if I can have the remaining food, or to just pick it up from the empty table. I don’t like food waste and am completely unbothered by the thought of sharing food and germs.

Would this ever be acceptable? If so, in which situations or types of restaurants? Also, how could I go about asking for the food?

– You Gonna Finish That?

Dear Finish: I doubt there’s any restaurant that can facilitate this kind of exchange between customers because of potential liability. So, you may be on your own.

Even one-on-one, this is likely going to be a tough sell for some people, but if you’re unbothered by sharing food and germs, then potential social awkwardness should be a breeze. I don’t mean to sound flippant, but if you want the food, simply telling people that you’re trying to prevent food waste and you’d like to take their food home, may be the best path. If you’re experiencing food insecurity and it’s about meeting a need you have, you might also say that.

However, if your primary concern is food waste, there are ways that you can have a greater impact. For instance, Food Waste Prevention Week (foodwastepreventionweek.com) lists many entry points for addressing food waste at a neighborhood or community level and beyond. See if there are options that appeal to you. Tackling the problem from this angle may keep you healthy and maximize your influence.

Dear Eric: I have a truly wonderful husband with five older sisters, who all live out of state.

I have had “run-ins” in the past with one of my sisters-in-laws, I’ll call her Tanya.

Earlier this year, my wonderful mamma passed away from Alzheimer’s, and I was, and still am struggling, but I lean on my husband and my siblings for support.

On the morning my mamma passed away, I sent a text message to all my sisters-in-law, informing them of her passing. A couple of my sisters-in-law responded immediately to my text message and I acknowledged them.

However, Tanya decided to send me a separate email. I am not the best at reading email, and I had zero intention of reading any emails on that day.

When I couldn’t sleep later that night, I saw the first email Tanya sent. I responded to her right away. But then I saw a second email Tanya sent many hours later, it was very nasty and Tanya made it sound like I acknowledged her sisters and not her. I was flabbergasted as well as angry because Tanya made the absolute worst day in my life about her.

We will be with the sisters-in-law and their extended family for a large upcoming gathering. I am not sure how to handle this. I want to avoid her at all costs, but we all usually sit at the same table. Just thinking about it totally sickens me. I don’t want to even go.

My husband is aware of all of this and the past run-ins as well and he also avoids Tanya.

How do you think I should proceed?

– Tense Family Affair

Dear Family: As you likely already know, Tanya is completely in the wrong here. While I might normally suggest having a frank conversation about your grievance with her beforehand, it sounds like she’s not in an ideal space to be reasonable and so it might be a waste of your time.

But it would be a shame for her to chase you away from having a nice time with family. Depending on the size of the table, you might purposefully choose the seats farthest from her so as not to be pulled into conversation, or you could simply decide that there are at least four other people with whom you can interact instead. If Tanya tries to engage with you, calmly tell her, “there are some things that we need to talk about before we can move forward. Let’s enjoy ourselves tonight and I’ll reach out about a time to talk later.” You’re under no obligation to clear the air with Tanya, especially if she’s not taking the initiative. But you’re also under no obligation to cater to her either.

Dear Eric: As a 73-year-old with plenty of aches and pains, I have a suggestion for “The Cup is Half Full”, whose friend group was overtaken by medical complaints. My group of friends and family refer to this kind of talk with humor as the “Organ Recital.” We limit our Organ Recitals to 15 minutes per visit for the group and then move on to other topics.

– Achy Lady

Dear Lady: The Organ Recital was a very popular suggestion. Love it.

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.

As 2025 comes to a close and we look to brighter days ahead, I find myself thinking about wishes. Not the grand kind you’d buy if you had billions of dollars — the quiet type that grows in the chest, that takes the shape of a friendly face or a neighbor’s help that arrives at the exact moment you need it.

My wish for 2026 is simple enough to say, but stubborn, like all good hopes: That we keep choosing each other.

What I see in our community is not people waiting to be rescued. It’s working folks carrying one another through storms that never really made the headlines. The teacher who keeps granola bars in her desk because she knows who will come to school hungry. The retired electrician who snow-blows half the block without being asked. The parent juggling two jobs and still somehow managing to coach their child’s sport. The cashier who remembers your mom’s name.

None of them have billions of dollars. Most don’t even have the cushion they deserve. But they know a secret the rich keep trying to spend their way around: Joy isn’t a luxury good. It’s a practice. A stubborn, daily rebellion against despair. And it thrives best in community.

May we keep insisting on the good life, not the glossy version on a billboard, but the real one.

And I’ll tell you how I talk about this with our kids. When we talk about wealth, I don’t reach for numbers; I reach for the good stuff. Some days, we are rich in beaded bracelets. Other days, we are rich in pick-up hugs. Many days, we are rich in dad jokes, which makes us equally wealthy in eye rolls. This, I tell them, is real wealth: the kind you can’t deposit, can’t hoard, and can’t lose to the stock market. The kind that grows only when shared. And the sort of stuff that keeps us motivated when it is time to roll up our sleeves and get back into the fight for everyone’s opportunity to earn and thrive.

So my wish for 2026 is that we square up to that truth with both feet. That we stop pretending any of us has to deny someone else’s humanity to survive. We don’t. We never did. The lie that we must fight over scraps while a handful hoards the rest is wearing thin and people are beginning to see the threads now.

And yes, I also carry a quieter, harder wish. That the people who harm this community through peddling this false narrative, who wield their unprocessed wounds like weapons, find the healing they so desperately need. May they learn to sit with themselves instead of taking their unmet needs out on the public. May they rediscover the center they lost somewhere along the way, the reason they once felt called to public service. Before power became something to hoard, before they forgot that leadership was supposed to be a lantern, not a bludgeon.

Healing doesn’t excuse harm. And none of us is immune to committing it. But without healing, the harm just keeps circling. And we are long past the time for the cycle to break.

My hope, audacious as it sounds, is that class solidarity becomes our neighborhood reflex. That we talk plainly about power: who has it, who doesn’t, and how we reclaim what was always meant to be shared. That taking care of one another stops being framed as idealistic and starts being understood as the oldest survival strategy in the human story.

May we keep insisting on the good life, not the glossy version on a billboard, but the real one:

A life where families have time instead of fear.

Where workers have dignity instead of exhaustion.

Where leaders earn trust instead of demanding loyalty.

Where we measure wealth in safety, in rest, in laughter, in the knowledge that someone down the street would show up for you and you’d show up for them.

This season, I’m holding tight to the belief that we can build that future — not through miracles, but through the small, unglamorous, everyday work of being decent to each other.

We do what we can, where we can, with what we have. And somehow, astonishingly, it adds up.

Here’s to a year of choosing each other. Here’s to a community that remembers its own power. Here’s to the quiet, ordinary wish that might just change everything.

Elise Shrock is a communications professional and policy advocate whose work intersects in the areas of spirituality, women’s empowerment and Hispanic affairs. Send comments to editorial@therepublic.com.