A man wanted a hot dog.

So he went to Wawa at night to get one. And when there wasn’t one, he tried again, at a different Wawa, the next night. And the next. And the next — always unlucky. For eight straight days, he posted updates on Reddit showing photos of the empty hot dog case.

Day 1: no hot dogs.

Day 2: no hot dogs.

Day 3: still no hot dogs.

“I WILL NEVER GIVE UP!!” he wrote.

At some point, people got invested. There were users checking in every day to see if this man’s hot dog quest was completed.

“You’re in my prayers fam. One of these nights you’ll get that hot dog,” one user wrote. And another, “I’m literally just praying for a successful glizzy night.”

By Day 5, the man had snapped. “This is now five Wawas… That means this is a Wawa organizational problem… make some [expletive] hot dogs. It’s not that complex,” he wrote on that day’s update.

And then, the thesis: “I don’t care about eating hot dogs, I just want Wawa to not suck anymore.” That’s it.

Wawa has built its entire identity on being there for you at any hour. So it’s easy to understand the frustration of walking in there and finding out… it’s kind of not.

And this wasn’t just a one-off. It was seven nights, different Wawas, and all the same result: no hot dogs.

Then, Day 8: “It finally happened!!! … this glorious smorgasbord of dogs!!”

A full case. Frankford and Academy. Around 10:30 p.m. Victory.

Parc has the best free restaurant bread in America, according to the Atlantic, after months of research and 13,000 miles of travel.

Anyone who’s sat down there, said “we’ll just have a light meal,” and then immediately eaten half a basket already knew this. The cranberry-walnut bread is the meal.

The writer describes it as having “an Everlasting Gobstopper–ish ability” to taste like an entire meal in one bite, which is an elaborate way of saying you will keep eating it even after you’re full.

And it’s free!

The restaurant makes about 1,500 loaves a day and gives away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bread every year. Which is either a terrible business decision or the smartest thing they’ve ever done, because they know we’re coming for it.

The Philadelphia Flyers are in the playoffs. Which means, among other things, this is technically Gritty’s first real playoff run in Philadelphia since his debut in September 2018, and that feels important.

It’s been a minute. The last time the Flyers made the playoffs, it was 2020 and all the games were in Toronto because of the pandemic. Before that, 2018. In the meantime, every other Philly team has had its moment. Eagles runs. Red October. The Flyers have been waiting.

“I feel for [the fans],” head coach Rick Tocchet said. “Hopefully this gives them a little bit of belief.”

And you could feel that Monday. The place was loud, then louder, then completely out of control once they forced overtime. Players said they had chills.

So yeah, the Flyers are back. But also, Gritty is about to experience playoff hockey for the first time, and that feels like something we should all be slightly concerned about.

An astronaut took Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl confetti around the moon.

Not metaphorically. Not “in spirit.” She literally brought it on a NASA mission and flew it around the moon.

Christina Koch said she did it as a surprise for her husband who got her into the Birds, reported CBS News. Which is a sweet explanation for something that is also objectively ridiculous.

Of all the things to bring on a historic mission — the first crewed trip to the moon in decades — someone said, yeah, let’s make sure the Super Bowl confetti makes it.

We regret to inform you there is, in fact, another Gritty item for this week’s report card.

And it involves a man getting a bloody, fanged tattooed on the top of his head. Fifty-year-old Willie Aston said he wanted to go all in for the Philadelphia Flyers playoff run, and this is how that manifested. A tattoo straight to the scalp.

“He basically just said… you have free rein,” said the artist, which is how we ended up here.

The result: bloodshot eyes, fangs, and what Aston described as “a Halloween Gritty.”

And honestly, this is kind of the whole thing with Gritty. He started as an underdog, became an icon, and now he’s inspiring people to permanently ink a horror version of him onto their heads in the name of playoff hockey.

Right on.

Cooper Sharp cheese has officially made the jump from cheesesteaks to pizza.

Not as a gimmick either. Shops are going through 20 pounds a day putting it on pies.

On one hand: Cooper is creamy, melty, and people are obsessed with it. On the other: This is American cheese on pizza.

Yes, it’s better than American cheese. But still.

There’s something a little unsettling about watching a cheesesteak topping creep toward becoming a pizza standard.

Philly is officially trying to land the 2028 DNC with Patti LaBelle, Rival Bros. coffee, and Tastykakes.

A strong pitch in our opinion.

Other cities are talking infrastructure and logistics. Philly is like: yes, but have you had a Butterscotch Krimpet?

We got the star power with Patti LaBelle. The coffee’s good. The snacks work. This is a city that knows how to host, obviously.

Let’s not forget, this is a real competition. Atlanta, Chicago, Denver — they’re presumably bringing more than a pastry tray to the table. At some point, you assume it comes down to hotels, transit, and whether the whole thing actually runs smoothly.

Sure. But there’s something very Philly about this approach. Lead with the icons, feed people well, and the rest will fall into place.