5.11.2011

Never Safe From Ridicule At The Dinner Table


In my family, you need to have thick skin. Especially if you were eating with Peter. And no one was immune -- not his mother, Nettie, or his sisters, family, friends, etc. -- from being made fun of, or being the subject of a practical joke or pig squeal. If you were sitting at his table (and all the cousins wanted to sit with him), dinner was going to be fun.

Every time we sat down to dinner, there was a fake choking stunt, or Pete would be putting his fork into your ear, taking a bite of an imaginary item, and make crunching noises in his mouth. No matter what age he was 10 or 46, he would be doing these antics. Even the last Thanksgiving we had together just a couple of years ago, he was doing disgusting things with milk, a straw and his nose.

One week, Peter took my sister and I to "The House of Hocus Pocus" on Coney Island Avenue. He bought 4 vinyl fake vomits and then brought us down to the basement to practice how to make the right noises while we took turns vomiting the fake vomit. So at dinner, just after Nettie served the plates, we were instructed on his count to take the vomit in our hands, and when he made a wrenching noise, to stand up from the table and let the vomit fall from our hands onto our food or the table. He instructed one of his sisters to scream to their mother that the food is poisoned and everyone is sick.

Well, Nettie ran into the room and looked at all the kids with vomit next to their plates while Pete made his best wrenching noises. She ran to the table, look real hard at the vomit and screamed at Pete, "What's the matter with you!" When his mom screamed at him, Pete couldn't keep a straight face anymore and he burst out laughing.

I remember I was the rat, who told Nettie that "Peter made us do it."

The rest of dinner was filled with fake wrenching noises from Pete and the sound of uncontrollable giggling from the nieces at the dinner table until Pete's father yelled at us to "stop it already."

14 comments:

  1. Hehehe This is a great story!!! Such a close and fun lovin family :) I bet dinners were amazing at the Ratajczyk Family Table!!

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  2. Jack Daniels and Pizza. That just popped into my mind.

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  3. LOL!! Poor Pete and Nettie!!! All those little varmints at the dinner table to have to deal with!! ROFL!! "Stop it already"!!!!

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  4. Wow...Thats just funny as hell! My kind of family. Sounds like some of the crazy things my kids try to pull at the dinner table but they like to fart or make fart noises amongst other things. I can't help but chuckle sometimes, were not normal..lol Thank you for sharing :)

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  5. This is so funny...I bet Nettie had her hands full all the time with just Peter around! What a great family :)

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  6. lol i love these stories! makes me miss him more,but also makes me feel like i know him more. thank you all.-erik hernandez-

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  7. Oh, boy... That would have been a sight to see.

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  8. too funny! what a character Peter was and what absolute fun to be around. Thanks you so much for sharing these stories, this is exactly how I imagined Peter to be like.

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  9. haha! That's awesome! I think that most people who didn't know Peter have this idea of him just from his music, of what kind of person he was and it is great to read these funny stories from you all that shows his sense of humor and playfulness and it's really refreshing to know that someone of his magnitude was also just a regular guy who loved being with his family. Thanks so much for sharing your memories and stories with all of us. This site has become my daily habit!!

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  10. This is kind of how my husband and I are raising my kids. Dinnertime is fun and we are constantly joking with each other. In my house, it was dead silence. Love this story so much...but the fake vomit is just nasty...lol

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  11. Such a hilarious story!! I laughed out loud on as I read it. Peter was sure a funny fella...and even though he is gone...I still just love him!!

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  12. I wish I could have sat at his table too!

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  13. These stories are great LOL I can imagine the scene so well - poor Nettie and Pete - but it is just too funny ;-) Thank you for sharing these memories and funny stories with us - it makes me smile everytime I read them.
    Sabine, Vienna, Austria

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