A woman who planned to surprise her parents by returning home from abroad for a visit ended up giving her father the shock of his life—and his reaction has gone viral.
Megan Taylor is originally from Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland, but for the past 10 years has been living in Toronto, Canada.
While she loves her life in the Great White North, she returns home regularly to see family, including her father, Douglas, who is usually the one to collect her from the airport.
“We actually joke and call him the airporteer, because even if it’s a distant friend of a friend, he will always offer to drive to Dublin for the 5:15 a.m. Aer Lingus arrival time,” Taylor told Newsweek.
In March, however, after the recent death of her grandmother, Taylor decided to surprise her parents with an unannounced visit to coincide with Mother’s Day in Ireland and the U.K.
But the surprise hit a bit of a snag, as she explained: “When I got home no one was in, and classically I didn’t have a key,” and so she “took refuge in the back garden as thankfully—very unlike March in Ireland—it was sunny.”
After 40 minutes of hiding behind her “multiple suitcases” in the yard, she heard her parents return home and open the back door to let the dog out. And while her plan was to sneak in to the house to surprise them both, she then heard her father come outside to put trash away.
And so she remained crouched, deciding to surprise him on his own—and his incredible reaction has led to the father and daughter going viral, after it was posted to Taylor’s TikTok account @kodakcapturer.
In the video, viewed over 5 million times since being posted on April 6, Taylor hides behind the corner of the house, before jumping up as her father carries out cardboard, an empty milk carton and a small trash can.
And his reaction is immediate, as he shouts out: “Jesus H Murphy!”
It appears he was first simply shocked at being jumped out at, but then his expression changes, becoming wide-eyed and open-mouthed—and he drops everything in his arms, staring at Taylor as though he can’t believe his eyes.
TikTok users were in stitches, awarding the video more than 820,000 likes, as one commenter wrote: “Bro dropped his whole inventory.”
“I have always wanted to dramatically drop things in total shock,” another said, while plenty more loved Douglas’ use of what one described as “the Lord’s entire government name.”
“I didn’t know Jesus’ legal name was H Murphy,” another joked, as one asked: “Who’s Jesus H Murphy?”
One-way flights from Toronto to Belfast cost hundreds of dollars and generally take around 10 hours, often with a connecting stop, according to travel website Skyscanner.
However, Taylor told Newsweek her dad’s reaction meant the cost of her flight home was “priceless,” and while he has “mixed reactions to being viral,” she knows he “secretly loves it.”
“He’s a driving instructor and so absolutely loves to be ‘down with the kids’ but doesn’t have TikTok and can’t understand how over 3 million people have seen his reaction,” she said.
As for her own thoughts about going viral, Taylor, who is vice president of a PR firm in Canada where she regularly works with brands and creators, admitted “being on the other end for a hot minute has been very novel.”
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