Ted Cruz can't escape Mexico vacation memes

Texas senator Ted Cruz, who fled Texas in the middle of record-breaking cold temperatures that left millions of his constituents without power or water, was unable to escape Twitter’s ire on Thursday, with users gleefully skewering what was seen as the senator’s poor judgment and poorer excuses.

Related: Ted Cruz flies to Cancún as millions of Texans freeze in the dark

In a statement released 12 hours after he was seen boarding the flight to Mexico, Cruz claimed that he took the flight to accompany his daughters.

New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe noted that Cruz “somewhat overpacked” if that was the purpose of his trip.

The image of Cruz wheeling his suitcase through the airport was swiftly Photoshopped into a slew of unlikely locations.

Comedian Blaire Erskine released a spoof statement from Cruz’s “director of communications” asking why Cruz shouldn’t be allowed to have his “Eat, Pray, Love moment, like everybody else”.

There were references to a Simpson’s episode in which Mayor Quimby claims to have cancelled a vacation to the Bahamas due to an epidemic:

The local Dallas News summed up the response to Cruz’s trip, writing: “He spent just one night out of the country – not long enough for a sunburn, but plenty of time to get blistered.”

But there was no laughing over one element of the story: the family poodle, Snowflake, appeared to have been left at home. Cruz’s wife Heidi wrote in text messages leaked to the New York Times that the house was “FREEZING”.

A security guard questioned by the New York Magazine journalist who spotted the forlorn dog staring out of the dark house said he was looking after it.