ABC Party HQ, a Dallas area party store, owner Carlos De La Fuente created a piñata inspired by the viral photos of Texas Senator Ted Cruz in an airport skipping town amid one of Texas biggest disasters to date.
“I’m always looking for something positive out of negative things so that we can all get a laugh out of it,” De La Fuente told NBC News.
The piñata of Cruz is based on the image of Cruz walking through the Cancún International Airport, holding his passport and pulling his rolling suitcase, while wearing a Texas flag mask. All items are included in the piñata. The image was taken after he was seen leaving the United States with his family aboard a flight to Mexico, right as the entire state of Texas was dealing with the worst winter storm to hit the state in decades, leaving millions without safe water, and hundreds of thousands without power for days.
The Texas party store first released the Cruz piñata Monday (Feb. 22) around noon. By 5 p.m. the store already had five or six orders, store owner Carlos De La Fuente told the Morning News.
But the Cruz piñata is not De La Fuente’s first political figure. The store has created piñatas in the likeness of former President Trump, and most recently, a Bernie Inauguration Meme piñata, complete with the mittens he famously wore.
The store was forced to shut down last year after the pandemic devastated their sales but the creative piñatas have brought the family owned store some hope. De La Fuente, who is from the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, says it’s been a spot of good news amid the weather emergency’s setbacks. The store had counted on the sale of fresh roses for Valentine’s Day, and they couldn’t sell a single one as residents wrestled with the disastrous cold snap.
The 3 1/2-foot-tall Cruz piñata has a price tag of $100 and currently has a two-week wait list.
“We’re now getting back to opening up,” said De La Fuente, “because the temperatures are there and are ready to get back to work.”