Diaries are supposed to be full of secrets and intrigue. They are a place to store our wildest dreams, and crazy thoughts we would never let out of our confused little heads in a million years. The idea of someone discovering your diary should be an unthinkable thought, filled with icy horror.
Rev. Robert Shields’ diary was absolutely not one of those diaries. It was a whopping 37.5 million words long and filled 94 boxes – the equivalent of 500 good-sized novels. How did it get so big? He simply documented his life every five minutes of every day for a quarter of a century.
There may well be secrets and intrigue hidden within those pages, but the six pages available to the public contain treasures like these:
“7 a.m.: I cleaned out the tub and scraped my feet with my fingernails to remove layers of dead skin.”
“7:05 a.m.: Passed a large, firm stool, and a pint of urine. Used five sheets of paper.”
“6:30-6:35 p.m.: I put in the oven two Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese at 350 degrees.”
“6:50-7:30 p.m.: I ate the Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese and Cornelia ate the other one. Grace decided she didn’t want one.”
Out of all my ‘Odd Writers’ so far, Robert Shields has to be the oddest!
Photo Credit: Ag Ku (Pixabay)
Jo Danilo | Writer 
In order to document everything he did every five minutes, he should surely have ended up writing “updating diary” rather regularly! Do you think it could be the most dull book of all time? Or does it have social history interest? 🙂
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I can see its value as a cure for insomnia! Can you imagine living with him? It’s very Monty Python 😃
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I’d rather not imagine that I think! 😄
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