Where tooth drillin' and deer killin' go hand in hand

"So, ya' wanna go deer huntin' after I fill that cavity?"

"So, ya' like to deer hunt? Would you like to go deer hunting sometime?"

I've had plenty of dentists tell me to spit (get your minds out of the gutter!), and plenty of dentists yell for not flossing enough, but never been asked to go kill a deer ... until I moved to Wisconsin.

Eleven years later, I still remember that's the way Dr. Pete Janovic introduced himself to me. It was even funnier back then because I thought everybody in Wisconsin -- and especially Doctor Pete -- had an accent somewhere between the Swedish Chef and a bad Sarah Palin impersonation. I didn't know who Sarah Palin was 11 years ago, mind you, but once I heard her say, "You betcha," I said to myself, "Oh! So that's how Petey and everybody else sounds!"

I'm also aware after more than a decade in Wisconsin, I sometimes sound like that myself, ya know! You betcha.

Pete became our dentist by accident, wouldn't'cha know. We were new to the area and Baby Girl had a boo-boo tooth. TriScare, our military insurance, gave us a list of four or five dentists in the area. One wasn't available, one was pretty rude, and Petey was No. 3.

"Aw hon, I'm sorry you're daughter's hurting," he told my Doe-Eyed Bride. "You bring her over right now and we'll squeeze her in."

Right over, as it turned out to be, was just around the corner and down the street. We've been coming right over ever since.

Seems you can't swing a dead cat in Kenosha without hitting a dentist. I've never tested that theory. I don't like cats that are alive, and find them even more unpleasant when they're dead, smelly and stiff. A lot of dentists take the Tri-To-Get-Care Insurance. We could have ended up anywhere, and gotten a pizza and a beer afterward since there seems to be a one-for-one amount of dentists, pizza joints and bars in Kenosha. You could have thrown porn stores in there, too, but Kenosha really had cleaned up most of that by the time we arrived in 2001, you betcha!

Either by dumb luck or divine dental intervention, we ended up with Pete.

Ya gotta love a guy who invites you to go out and hunt wild animals while he's fixing your Baby Girl's tooth. It was a nice gesture that deer hunting was, but clearly, Pete did not realize I was in the Air Force. We contract that stuff out. There's a reason they gave me a camera instead of a gun and told me to keep it on automatic.

Never did get that deer-hunting trip but that's OK. I've gotten a lot of great conversations during dental trips routine and extreme. A typical digging-in-my-mouth excursion that should take only 30 minutes usually takes an hour and a half by the time Pete is done telling jokes and talking, whether or not he can understand what you're saying in reply.

Pete's friendly but he ain't stupid. He doesn't care if I don't floss regularly. He also gives The Boy candy after his appointments. Sounds like a good business plan, at least until one or both of us run out of teeth.

When our oldest, Devin, was killed in a car accident Aug. 7, it just so happened Stephen was supposed to have an appointment a few days later. Devn's death was big news in a small town. Wanda, Pete's super scheduler, called to let us know the appointment was canceled. Steve insisted he was going. He just needed to get out of the house. Pete leaned him back in the chair and said, "You don't want to do this for real, do ya'?" He turned it into a four-hour appointment and they ended up eating pizza and playing video games the rest of the day. I never saw a bill.

Pete and most of his staff came to the funeral. And Pete gave The Boy a bike. Just gave him a bike one day, because he thought he'd like it.

So it was kind of nice when I found out I had a check-up with Pete today. He's the tall looking dude in the picture.

"When we goin' deer huntin', Pete?" I asked.

"Hey! Dat's right!" he said. "We still gotta do dat!"

Pete and I used to talk about where I wanted to move to since we were getting antsy to leave Kenosha.

But after all that and so much more, we could never leave.

With more than 90,000 people in this town, it's getting harder to call it a small town, but I'm pretty sure if we ever moved, we'd never find a dentist willing to take me deer hunting, know what I mean?