Plenty of us have stuff we have been hanging on to for a long time and maybe need a little push to get rid of. For one East Tennessee man, the recent flood was just that push, after 11-inches of water crept into his basement.
“I had it as a kid,” said Shawn Banks. “I honestly don’t remember why I started it, but I just started making a little rubber band ball. I was like 10 years old maybe – about fifth grade? I don’t know.”
Banks’s dilemma is well documented on Facebook, under a post titled, ‘Giant rubber band ball – FREE TO THE RIGHT NERDS!’ We won’t go further into its age.
“For some reason, I just kept it and moved around with it my whole life,” said Banks. “I don’t go around playing with it everywhere I go at all times. I’m not the rubber band ball guy.”
To quote Banks’s social media post, he is now a grown man with three kids and a wife who has relegated his beloved toy to the basement of their home.
“We started having children and needing floor space for kids and toys,” said Banks”s wife Kerri. “I think I get the bad name in all this for shoving it down to the basement… that then flooded, and has led us to this point in time. I’m a little heartbroken… I’m trying not to cry,” Kerri Banks jokingly said.
Thirty years of carefully placed rubber bands now sits in the Banks family home, where it allegedly no longer gets the attention it deserves. Weighing in at 120 pounds may have something to do with that.
“I don’t do a lot with the rubber band ball except shove it out of the way as needed,” said Kerri Banks.
After high school, Shawn Banks went to culinary school where his rubber band ball hobby was then supported by his job, seeing as how vegetables almost always have rubber bands on them.
“Once it got submerged in the floodwaters from the last couple weeks it’s basically a biohazard at this point and I don’t think it’s worth keeping anymore.”
The Bankses always discussed if the rubber band ball was ever to go away, it had to be done in some epic fashion.
“He claims to have charged me years ago, with contacting the Mythbusters but I’m pretty sure I was elbow deep in baby diapers so I never called the Mythbusters.,” said Kerri Banks.
According to Shawn Banks’s social media post, the rubber band ball is up for grabs to any science class in the greater Knoxville or East Tennessee area that will destroy it in the most fun way possible.
You can freeze it, shatter it, torch it, he doesn’t care as long as it’s epic and his family can watch from a safe distance. Kerri Banks is holding out judgment on her emotions of saying goodbye at this point, saying she wants those feelings to be organic at the time of destruction.
Whoever has the most interesting plan of action gets the ball. Shawn Banks will deliver the 30-year-old piece of childhood memorabilia and the new owner will have one week to destroy it. Video evidence is required. Anyone interested can reach out to Shawn Banks via his post on Facebook.
