A mother’s over-the-top excuse to help her daughter leave work early has left people laughing out loud.

We’ve all been in situations where we needed to leave work early and had to come up with an excuse. Most of the time, a simple reason does the trick. But occasionally, these excuses—whether real or made up—turn out to be hilariously exaggerated. Kim, known as @lunakimm on X (formerly Twitter), shared a viral post about asking her mom for help with an excuse. Her mom’s response was so outrageous it took the internet by storm, racking up nearly 5 million views and 256,000 likes.

The post included a blurred screenshot of Kim’s chat with her mom. Presumably, she had asked her mom to come up with a reason she could show her manager to justify leaving early. Wanting to help, her mom delivered an unexpectedly dramatic excuse: “You have to come HOME right now, your dad has been arrested AGAIN.” Somehow, Kim decided this was a valid reason to show her manager.

People on X were amused by her mom’s creativity and shared their thoughts in the comments. One user, @fairy_duststash, wrote, “I mean, the urgency of the situation was delivered properly.” Others joked about the extra effort her mom put in to help her potentially take more time off. For example, @tessalyn617 quipped, “Your mom is giving you a reason to take more than one day off. ‘Oh, we have to visit dad at the prison upstate,’ ‘Oh, dad has court today.’”

Kim later followed up her post with a twist: “My manager just told me he found my Twitter.” It seems the hilarious excuse didn’t have the intended effect, but it certainly entertained the internet.