It's a classic tale of too-good-to-be-true, but it's also a demonstration of how far perseverance can take you.
Last week, when a biblical deluge flooded the streets of South Tampa, a man was photographed climbing out of a stalled car on Bayshore Boulevard clutching a pizza delivery bag.
After the photo got posted on popular news sharing sight Reddit, it didn't take long for it to achieve viral status.
Tampa Tribune pop culture reporter Christopher Spata saw the photo on multiple subreddits (the site is divided into thousands, possibly millions of these, dedicated to everything from shitty food porn to paintings of monks gazing at glasses of beer).
The man climbing out of his car was hailed as a superhero for braving such severe weather to deliver a pizza to a hungry family. Spata had to track him down.
It took him days to find the guy, and there were many dead ends. But he kept on until he found the guy.
As it turned out, there was no pizza in that delivery bag and he had been stuck in his waterlogged car for hours.
We won't to spoil the details for you, but suffice it to say, the real thrill of this tale is in its telling. Spata obviously worked his ass off, and, even if the viral photo wasn't what it was cracked up to be, the real story turned out to be in Spata's journey.
Seriously, read it.
