Our first apartment was a fourplex with two units upstairs and two downstairs. We lived in the bottom-left apartment at 736 E 1500 S, Orem, Utah.
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| Our first apartment in Orem, Utah as it looked in the October 2023 Google Maps street view |
Directly above us lived Jay and Beth Decker, fellow members of our BYU married-student ward. They were fun, friendly, and always up for a game night.
While we lived there, Beth and Jay had their first baby, a sweet little girl named Jessica. We visited them in the hospital when she was born, admired all her tiny fingers and toes, and soon began trading babysitting favors.
One Saturday afternoon, a few months after Jessica’s arrival, Beth knocked on our door. “Could you watch Jessica for just a bit? She’s asleep, we’re running to the store.” She handed us a key to their apartment and their baby monitor, the kind you plugged into the wall but with a wireless audio feed.
The plan was simple: if Jessica woke up, we could go upstairs and check on her. We never needed to. The Deckers were gone for about thirty minutes.
We heard them return and figured they would pop down to get the monitor. They did not. Instead, we heard their door open, footsteps cross the floor above, the bedroom door shut, and then…
Let’s just say the baby monitor began broadcasting a live program. Not rated G. Not rated PG. Definitely the XOXOXO channel.
Annette and I looked at each other with eyes as big as saucers, scrambled to unplug the monitor, and collapsed into muffled giggles like two middle schoolers who had just overheard the health class chapter the teacher was not supposed to read aloud.
A little while later, Beth came down, all smiles, and asked how Jessica had done. “Perfect angel,” we said, handing over the monitor. Which was true. She had been sound asleep. And that is all we said.
We never brought up the extra bonus audio. Not that day, not ever.
We still exchange Christmas cards with the Deckers thirty-five years later. Every December, we open their envelope (and later email), see their smiling family photo, and think, Yup… still not mentioning it.
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