LAUDERHILL, Fla. -- Look, over there. Under that blue tarp in a suburban driveway. That thing that's the size of a Smart car? It's Joel Waul's rubber band ball.

Mr. Waul has spent the last six years carefully wrapping and linking and stretching rubber bands of various sizes into the ball shape.

The Guinness Book of World Records declared it the world's largest rubber band ball in 2008.

Yesterday, Mr. Waul said goodbye to his creation. A team from Ripley's Believe it or Not came to his house with a crane and hauled away the 6-foot, 7-inch tall, 9,032-pound behemoth on a flatbed truck.

"It's a little bit sad to see it go, but it's going to be appreciated by thousands and hopefully millions of people in Ripley's museum, to see and wonder, 'What was this guy thinking?' " Mr. Waul said.

The ball will eventually be displayed in a far-off museum yet to be determined.

That's Fascinating, where Mark Roth spotlights the odd and the interesting in everyday life, is featured exclusively in the Opinion section on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.