Panicked lawyer dad's texts to daughter at college after her hamster escapes are anything but ordinary
Parents often claim they don’t want a pet, only to end up more attached than anyone else in the family. One father proved this in the most wholesome way when his daughter's hamster escaped while she was away at college. His frantic text messages, shared by Reddit user u/vP5pJeRgsS, quickly went viral. It all started with an alarming message. "Please call me as soon as you get this. It’s an emergency," the dad texted his daughter. Expecting something serious, his daughter responded, only to realize the emergency involved their pet hamster going missing. "Dad do not freak out, it’s just a hamster!! We will find him," she reassured him. But for this dad, the situation was anything but minor.
"Oh my God, I’m so sorry honey. I’m so sorry. I’m looking everywhere." The panic only escalated as he kept apologizing. "This is the absolute worst ever. I’m never going to forgive myself if he doesn’t come back." He then questioned, "Should I keep looking for him or is that going to scare him into hiding? If I can’t find him today, I’m not going to work tomorrow so I can keep looking." His daughter reminded him, "Dad—he’s just a hamster. I don’t blame you at ALL. You shouldn’t skip work, you are a lawyer and he is a hamster."
Still determined, the dad took a creative approach to his search, sending a picture of an elaborate setup in their home. "That looks good. What’s the white arc of bedding for? Or is that bedding? What is that?" his daughter asked. "Flour. So I can see his footsteps if he comes to get the food. So I know he’s still alive," he explained. Despite his daughter’s reassurances, the guilt weighed heavily on him. "I’m so sorry Steph. This is my biggest screw-up ever. I will make it right." Even after she tried to comfort him, he remained convinced that it was his fault. "I put him in his ball a whole bunch of times. I should have double-checked," he said.
As the search continued, he tried to think of ways to lure the hamster out. "I know he likes peanut butter. Peanuts. That’s a start." Then, finally, he sent a picture of the hamster. "OMG. DID YOU GET HIM??" his daughter texted in excitement. "Yes. In his cage," he responded. But the drama didn’t end there. "The little b**tard is trying to get out again," the dad wrote, sending a picture of the hamster attempting another escape. His daughter said, "Arrest him." "This was the most stressful day in my life since I took the bar exam," the dad admitted before finally calling it a night. The exchange quickly captured hearts online, as people couldn’t get enough of the dad’s commitment to the small pet.
u/Dangerous_Pension612 said, "This is my favorite post I’ve seen here so far. You can tell they have such a good parent/child relationship. He is proud as hell in those last pics holding the hamster lol. How wholesome." u/jackson12420 added, "The 'I put flour down so I could see his footsteps' melted my cold dead heart. That was the cutest thing I’ve seen in a long time." u/SoftBlossomm noted, "This is both hilarious and heartwarming, hope the little guy’s okay!" u/bloodspartan666 commented, "I love this, the fact that he skipped work for a hamster."