Even my Dutch parents think I'm cheap

Yesterday night, my mother called.

I told her about my apartment search and my food experiment. She suggested that I could now afford to spend more money on rent and food... yeah, this to the girl who runs halfway across town just to make it to Carleton and back on one bus ticket.

Tonight, my father called.

My mom had filled him in. He suggested that moving to an apartment with more than one room does NOT make me a spendthrift.

Then he offered to drive up to Ottawa in his pickup truck to help me move my stuff (read: all of my stuff could probably fit in that pickup truck). And this - THIS is coming from a pensioner (he's 60 and just applied for CPP) who was born in the Netherlands: home of the Stubborn, the Proud, and the Frugal.

For crying out loud, my parents think that debt is the unforgiveable sin! And they say that I now deserve the luxury of a real apartment with a real oven, a real toaster, a real bedroom, a real bathtub!!

I'm still in shock.

Well they're still old-fashioned; I mean c'mon, global warming can't exist because... well isn't it so cold out now in February?

I said, "Call me again in July".