J is for JOSHUA

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.” 

― Roald Dahl
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 I will give you three guesses as to why I am choosing the word Joshua for my J word. 

1) No, it has nothing to do with the biblical figure

2) Nope.  Nothing to do with the U2 or the National park in Southern California; and 

3) No, it has nothing to do with one of my favorite books:  Joshua: A Parable for Today.

I would tell you why I chose the word, but it is super-duper-secret, highly confidential, need to know information.  

Okay, fine, I guess since you are reading this post and have gotten this far down you must need to know.  Touché.  Well played.  

I will give in.  But before I do that, let me say this:

To the Little Man:  If you have somehow unlocked the closet door, have climbed the shelves to find the laptop, hacked our password, figured out how to turn on the Wi-Fi and have navigated your way to this website, “Congratulations, you little Houdini,  you are punished!"  You are also forbidden from reading further since I am about to reveal some House Secrets.

Do the words:  “Greetings, Professor Falken” mean anything to you?  How about the words:  “Let's play Global Thermonuclear War.”

That’s right!  Those quotes are from Matthew Broderick’s pre-Ferris Bueller movie War Games (1983).  Joshua is the name of the computer in that movie.

We use the word Joshua in our house as a code word for our laptop computer. 

You see, our Little Man has an unhealthy love of the computer.  Actually, it not the computer itself, but the internet access it offers which causes him problems.  He cannot help himself, but getting on Google and searching for his demons:  Remember the Baby Einstein Post?  He gets on Google and will search for anything Baby Einstein related.  Imagine our surprise one day when we hear him reciting Baby Galileo in Spanish!  I kid you not:  All the Spanish I know, I learned from his Google searches:  Planetas!  Galaxias!  Estrellas!


[O.K.  That's not all the Spanish I know.  My cousin also taught me: ¡Mis pantalones están en fuego!]

So, we keep the laptop hidden.  It’s only to be used when the Little Man is asleep or at school.  All other times, we dare not refer to it by its real name – only as Joshua. 

Added bonus code word:  We also call the iPad   :  The Girl from Ipanema!