Our daughter, Emma, is 20 years old, which means she is an adult. Granted, she’s an adult college student, which, as any parent will tell you, is sort of an adult. But still, she’s 20.

So you would think that I would no longer find myself in the middle of disputes between my wife and Emma.

My wife and Emma have a very good relationship, and by “very good relationship,” I mean they drive each other crazy.

When Emma was younger and she and my wife were driving each other crazy, they would eventually come to me looking for a solution to whatever was driving them crazy.

At first, I was flattered that Emma and my wife would come to me seeking a solution. And when I say “at first,” I mean once.

After the first time Emma and my wife came to me seeking a solution, I discovered that they really didn’t want a solution. What they wanted was for me to tell one of them that the other one was crazy, which as any veteran husband knows is a no-win situation.

Telling both of them that they are crazy was also a no-win situation.

The only win was to run away, but a guy can only run so far.

Here is a random example from the past:

Emma: “Dad, Mom says I have to be home by 10 tonight. She’s crazy, right?”

My Wife: “Mike, Emma wants to stay out past 10 tonight. She’s crazy, right?”

Emma and My Wife: “That’s weird. He was here a second ago.”

But Emma and my wife both have matured to a point where they don’t need me to get in the middle of their problems because they no longer have problems.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sometimes I kill myself.

On Friday afternoon, I was upstairs in our office/guest room that really isn’t so much an office/guest room as it is a “place to store all the stuff we don’t have room for.” The reason I was in the office/guest room that really isn’t an office/guest room was because I was working on this column.

Well, technically, I was reading about the St. Louis Cardinals, who — depending on who are reading — are either “the worst baseball team in the history of baseball” or “just going through a rough patch.” I was hoping for a column topic to magically appear — something that almost never happens. That’s when I heard mild yelling coming from downstairs.

Because the yelling was only mild, I kept reading about the Cardinals. At our house, “mild yelling” is like saying “Aloha.”

It can mean a lot of things is what I’m saying.

But shortly after the mild yelling, Emma appeared in the doorway to our office/guest room that really isn’t an office/guest room.

“I’m trying to fix lunch, and I told Mom that I was going out to dinner tonight with Hilda, Scooter and Biff (not their real names), and she said I had to ask you,” Emma said. “She’s crazy, right? Plus, I’m really hungry and just want to eat lunch.”

See, here we had a problem. Clearly, my wife in this instance is crazy. My wife should know never to get in the middle of Emma and food when Emma is hungry.

Second, my wife was crazy to have Emma ask me if she could go out to dinner with Hilda, Scooter and Biff (not their real names) because I didn’t care.

I just wanted to be left alone. So rather than make a crazy ruling, I just told Emma to have fun at her dinner. And just like that, a problem was solved.

Better yet, a column topic magically appeared.