Noe Valley Man Builds Giant Rubber Band Ball, Names it Rubberta

By Ashley Harrell Thu., Dec. 17 2009 at 5:36 PM

Categories: Labor, Local News, WTF?

Mike Anthony Guiterrez is married, but he's spent an awful lot of time in the last three months thinking about Rubberta. She's a growing presence in his life, and recently became as tall as Guiterrez's calf (about 10 centimeters high, he estimates). If all goes according to plan, she'll eventually be more than six feet high and wide.

Rubberta, tipping the scales

If you somehow managed to skip the headline, here's the shocking explanation for all of this -- Rubberta is a ball made out of rubber bands.

She goes where Guiterrez goes, so when he's at work as a manager at Tuggey's Hardware on 24th Street in Noe Valley, that's where Rubberta is. When he's out for a spin in Alyssa, his 66 mustang named after Alyssa Milano, that's where Rubberta is. When he's hanging out with his pet rock, Mighty Whitey, so is Rubberta.

Guiterrez took Rubberta with him on vacation

All this attention on the rubber band ball has actually started to make Guiterrez's wife jealous, he admits. But deep down, Guiterrez believes his spouse has feelings for Rubberta, too. "Some days I'll catch her putting rubber bands on when she thinks I'm not looking," he says.

It all started as a way of avoiding boredom for Guiterrez and a co-worker, but as the ball grew, so too did Guiterrez's desire to break the world record. It won't be an easy task, as hundreds of people create rubber band balls. (As a kid, Guiterrez was inspired by man named Sammy who built a 2,260-pounder over more than a decade at the Misson's Pride Superette Market).

Baby Rubberta

The current record holder, Joel Waul (who was recently profiled in our sister paper, Miami New Times) created a rubber band ball weighting more than 9,400 pounds out of about 730,000 rubber bands. It took six years.

"What I'd really like to do is let it roll down the streets of San Francisco," Waul told Miami New Times. "It would smash everything in it's way!"

Instead, Waul probably made bank. In August 2008, Guinness officials declared his ball the world champ, and this summer, Ripley's Believe It or Not! purchased the ball for an undisclosed sum. The former world champion, a 4,600-pounder created by Steve Milton of Oregon, sold to Office Max for $50,000 Clearly, Guiterrez has a long way to go. But he's willing to be patient, and has been enjoying his time with Rubberta, taking her for walks, er, rolls, and such. When he adds bands, he calls it "feeding Rubberta." He's been documenting her expansion with photographs from day one.

"I gotta watch my baby grow up," he says.

Guiterrez is asking anyone with spare rubber bands and an interest in being part of history to send or drop off the bands at Tuggey's Hardware -- 3885 24th St. in Noe Valley.