Lots of us have stuff we’ve been hanging onto for years… and maybe we need a little push to get rid of it.

For one Alcoa man, the recent flood provides just that push, after nearly a foot of water slurped its way into his basement.

What’s Shawn Banks been hanging on to all these years? A giant ball of rubber bands.

“I had it as a kid,” he said “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.”

After high school, Banks went on to culinary school – where he had plenty of access to rubber bands, seeing as so much produce tends to come rubber-banded together.

Regardless of how (or when) he started, the ball has grown over the past 30 years and now weighs more than 120 pounds.

Banks’ rubber-band ball dilemma is well documented on Facebook, under his post “Giant rubber band ball – FREE TO THE RIGHT NERDS!”

According to his post, he’s now a grown man with three kids – and a wife who relegated his once-beloved toy to their basement.

“I think I get the bad name in all this for shoving it down to the basement… that then flooded,” said Banks’ wife, Kerri. “I’m a little heartbroken… I’m trying not to cry,” she joked.

And since the ball’s submersion in the past weeks’ floodwaters, it’s basically been rendered a biohazard, and Banks doesn’t believe it’s worth keeping anymore.

But Banks wants it to go away in epic fashion.

Kerri Banks says her husband “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.”

So now, according to Banks’ Facebook post, the ball is up for grabs to any area science class that will destroy it in a wildly creative way.

Freeze it, shatter it, torch it into a glob of goo… Banks doesn’t care – as long as it’s “epic” in scope. And his family can watch from a safe distance.

Whoever Banks deems has the most interesting plan of action gets the ball. He’ll personally deliver the 30-year-old behemoth, 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.