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Way back in 2015 I took a trip to a place called The Museum of Outdated Technology. I first learned about this place on the Roadside America site but, for some reason, that site has since removed all references to this place. (Other sites like Atlas Obscura and Roadside Wonders still lists this place.)
At the time I was working this job that was in Bethesda and the day I went to The Museum of Outdated Technology was the last day of that gig so I decided to go to this particular museum (which is actually located in the back of the Wagging Tails Thrifts & Gifts thrift store). I wanted to do something fun to celebrate the end of a very stressful gig and I was in the area anyway so it was no big deal to make the short commute to this place from what was now my former workplace. I took a bunch of photos and wrote a blog post about it. I haven’t been back to this place since mainly because the museum in question is so small that it’s really not worth making a special trip to visit and I haven’t really gone back to that particular area of Rockville that would warrant me making a repeat visit to that museum.
Moving forward to 2018, I had spent the bulk of my Labor Day holiday weekend at the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival. I had a fun time but the only major flaw was weather-related. For the most part the temperature was not only very humid but it had reached in the low-90’s, which made walking around outdoors a major challenge. I tried staying in air conditioned buildings as much as possible but there were times when I got totally overheated.
Well, anyway, Labor Day was a very hazy, hot, and humid day with full sunshine so walking around the fairgrounds was like a literal hell on earth. I left the festival as soon as I could and I returned home only to remember that I hadn’t turned on the air conditioner before I left this morning so my home felt like a sauna. I decided to drive to a nearby air conditioned mall where I could cool down until twilight. I ended up eating a $5 chicken sandwich at the new Z Burger place that had opened at that mall a few months ago. At one point I looked on my phone where I saw this email from a total stranger named Donald:
From: Donald
Subject: Museum of Outdated Technology
Are you open today?
I can understand why he was asking because it was a major holiday and there were plenty of places that were either closed or on very limited hours. I was totally dumbfounded by the fact that he had sent this email to me. I know I had once visited this place and I wrote one blog post about it but anyone who read it would know that I had absolutely nothing to do with this place. I don’t know how he came to equate me with that place. Today I did a Google search on the Museum of Outdated Technology and I found that my original 2015 blog post does come up in the top four results. But if he had taken the time to thoroughly read that blog post, he would’ve known that I had no connection to it. I don’t know if he had read my blog post or not but if he did, it’s obvious that reading comprehension is not his strong suit.
As I read that original email message today, I realized that he had sent it at 10 a.m. but I didn’t check my email until after 5 p.m. because I was so busy with the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival. If I had to do this all over again and if my mind had been more rational without being exposed to constant heat and humidity, I would’ve just deleted this email and not even bothered with answering it. But I was pretty overheated from spending most of the day in 90 degree humid weather and I was pretty tired so I admit that my judgment and common sense went out the window. I decided to answer this guy where I sent this message:
From: Kim
Subject: Re: Museum of Outdated Technology
Why are you emailing this to me? I have never worked in this place. I don’t know if they are open. I suggest doing a Google search for the phone number that you can call.
Minutes later I received this email from Donald:
From: Donald
Subject: Re: Museum of Outdated Technology
So is that a yes?
It wasn’t until the next day I realized that he had sent his original email at 10 a.m. on Labor Day. I didn’t see it until after 5 p.m. because I was busy with the festival. I sent him my reply yet he sent his reply asking if this place was open even though it was past 5 p.m. and there was a strong chance that if that place was open on Labor Day, it would’ve been closed by now since many places tend to have limited operating hours on Labor Day. (In fact, while I was at the local mall trying to escape the intense heat I saw that many of the smaller businesses were in the process of closing at 6 p.m. because of the holiday.) I was tired and overheated so my temper and patience was far shorter than usual. In total exasperation I sent this email:
From: Kim
Subject: Re: Museum of Outdated Technology
I can’t answer that question. I have ZERO connection with this place. Please stop emailing me.
I know I sounded harsh but, you’d think that Donald would get the message that I’m someone who had no connection to that place other than the fact that I wrote a blog post about it back in 2015. But he still wouldn’t let it go.
From: Donald
Subject: Re: Museum of Outdated Technology
Do you know who I could ask?
I felt so frustrated by this point. Here I am repeatedly letting this guy know that I have no connection with this place yet he seems to think that I somehow have all kinds of connections to this place. I have never been employed by the thrift shop that operates the Museum of Outdated Technology in any kind of capacity and I don’t know anyone who works there. I had only visited this place one time and that was back in 2015. I have only written one blog post about it. I haven’t been back since and I haven’t even given much thought to this place since my one and only visit. I decided to just send one more email then let it go because it was so obvious that this guy is too stupid and thick-headed to understand that I have no connection of any kind to the Museum of Outdated Technology.
From: Kim
Subject: Re: Museum of Outdated Technology
No, I don’t know.
That was my last response to Donald. I haven’t heard back from him since yesterday and I’m hoping it stays that way. If he starts emailing me again about the Museum of Outdated Technology, I’m just going to block him because I don’t need this annoyance from a complete stranger.
If Donald or anyone else is interested in the Museum of Outdated Technology, here’s the information I found today through Google that you can use to contact these people with whatever questions you happen to have:
Museum of Outdated Technology
c/o Wagging Tails Thrifts & Gifts
1310 E. Guide Drive
Rockville, Maryland 20850
Phone: (301) 279-0345
Email: itercy@mchumane.org
Website: www.mchumane.org/support/thrift-store/
Now that I’ve posted this information, I’m going to announce that I will not answer any further emails about the Museum of Outdated Technology because I’m the wrong person you should be asking.
Since late September I’ve been spending each Tuesday waking up at the crack of dawn so I could drive around the notoriously slow and clogged Capital Beltway so I could arrive at Bethesda by 8:15 a.m. I was working a part-time temp job that lasted only one hour per week. December 8 was the last day that I had to show up for the job. Without going into too many details, I’m just going to say that it was the kind of job where I basically liked it because it actually utilized my knowledge of digital photography and I also liked my co-worker. The downside is that there was so much behind-the-scenes drama involving the organization we both contracted for that we really weren’t able to do as an effective job as we could’ve done. On top of it, I didn’t get my first paycheck from the organization until after we were working for 8 weeks and the breakdown was that I got paid for little more than $5.93 per hour. That crappy paycheck was the last straw for me (the gas money alone ate up the majority of my paycheck) and I’ve decided not to accept any further work from that organization. (If I hadn’t foolishly signed a contract on my first day at that job requiring me to stay in the job until it officially ended on December 8 or I got fired—whichever came first—I would’ve quit long before my job officially ended.)
Since it was a warm and pleasant December day I decided to have a little fun after my job officially ended forever. I looked up the Roadside America website and I decided to check out a couple of off-beat places that were located in nearby Rockville since I was in the area anyway.
First I checked out something called the Museum of Outdated Technology, which is located inside the MCHS Thrift Store, which is a fundraiser for the Montgomery County Humane Society.
It took me a while to find the Museum of Outdated Technology. It’s basically located in the very back of the store along a few walls. It was definitely worth the effort because the museum consisted of several shelves full of pop culture kitsch that was released between circa 1950-1990.
The only thing about the museum is that much of it is obstructed by boxes and counters (such as in the next picture) so it’s difficult to get a close look at much of the items on display. I’m sure it’s done in order to deter people from touching (or even stealing) the items. I wish there was a better way of organizing where the items could be protected while giving people a chance to have a close-up view of them. Putting them behind locked glass cabinets might be a solution.
Aside from the Museum of Outdated Technology, the MCHS Thrift Store is your typical thrift store where one can purchase a variety of used items—ranging from books to clothes to toys—for a very low price. Plus the proceeds from the thrift shop goes to the Montgomery County Humane Society. Since I went to that store in December, the store had a variety of Christmas decorations for sale like the ones in the picture below.
There were a variety of items, such as this Chinese language version of the soundtrack from Pinocchio.
Then there’s this book, which had me thinking what was the publisher thinking when it decided that Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly would make a swell children’s book author.
Once I left that store, I decided to check out Saint Mary’s Catholic Church, which is the oldest Catholic church in Rockville that’s still in use.
Outside the entrance to the church’s graveyard was a nativity scene (which was appropriate given the fact that I was at that church in December).
Here’s a closeup of that nativity scene. The interesting thing is the absence of the baby Jesus lying in a manger. I have a feeling that the church doesn’t include that infant until the days closest to Christmas. It’s similar to what my mother used to do when she used to put up the nativity scene in our home when I was a child. She wouldn’t put out the three wise men until January 6 since, according to tradition, that was when the three kings would finally arrive to the stable to give the baby gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Although she did put out the baby Jesus in the manger while she put up the nativity scene. While the church’s nativity scene didn’t have the baby Jesus but it had the three wise men. Go figure.
The graveyard lies in the back of the church and one can tell that the church was once a little country church because the office buildings seem to clash with the historic tombstones.
The graveyard is most famous for being the final resting place of the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, his wife Zelda, and their only child, nicknamed Scottie (but she’s buried under her full name of Frances Scott Fitzgerald Smith). I previously visited those graves back in 2012. Here is what those graves look like when I took this shot with my Canon DSLR Digital Rebel camera.
And here are those same graves taken three years later with the camera that’s in my Droid Ultra smartphone.
You can read the back tombstone much easier in the recent photo than in the earlier photo. This goes to show the great strides that digital photography (especially in smartphones) have taken in recent years. I took some more photos of the Fitzgerald family gravesite, especially since some people left some interesting gifts behind recently.
The three Fitzgeralds are buried alongside other relatives of F. Scott’s.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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