It happened after a huge rain storm. It was 3:30 in the morning when i got in the car to go to work. It was dark and i was barely awake. I would not have seen the vast amount of movement when i opened the door to throw my bags and jacket in. Similarly, it was dark when i left the car in the parking lot and headed for my building. Imagine the shock on my face when i returned to the car at the end of my shift and opened the door to throw my lunchbox in only to be witnessing an entire colony of carpenter ants tending to their larvae in the space in between my door and the frame of my car. They were moving about at a furious speed in all directions and the larger ants were moving the larvae this way and that. I closed the door immediately, but then i thought, maybe i imagined it. I opened the car door again. There they were. I closed the car door. But it was so absurd. The idea that they had brought all their larvae and deposited them in this space in between the door and the car frame. I opened the door once more. Sure enough, there were ant larvae. I closed the door. As long as i kept the door closed they did not have access to the interior of the car because the weather proof lining would keep them from entering. I drove around in my car like this for days, hoping they would just silently make their exit once the ground dried and go back to their home. But, they continued to live in my car. It seemed they had adopted my car as their new ant hill. I called a pest control company and told the guy (who happened to be the owner of the company) that i was driving around with a colony of carpenter ants in my car and i needed somebody to kill them. He thought i was joking at first. He had me describe it multiple times and finally send him photographs from my phone. I told him i’d bring the ants to him if he could get them out or kill them but he insisted that i would not want to drive with the poisons in the car, even if i lowered the windows. He was so intrigued that he told me to go home and promised to drive out to my little nowhere town to kill the ants himself because, and i quote “i have to see this.” He did come out to my property. We lined up in front of the door and when i opened it, his face looked like mine when i first saw them. What is a carpenter ant colony doing operating in the complete absence of any dirt or wood, as if everything is business as usual, in a metal car? He scratched his head and said, “this is a new one for me.” We closed the door. He said, “i can kill them if that’s what you want.” I was like, yes, kill them. I mean, i couldnt just drive the ants around town for the next ten years. They had to go. So he scratched his head once more, looked like he’d seen an alien, and then turned to me and asked, “did any of them bite you.” I said, “no. They just seem to move the larvae around and crawl furiously within this little space. When the door is closed they cant get inside the interior of the car.” The guy nodded, strapped a canister of poison on his back, and used a wand to spray all the ants until the entire colony was dead. The ants were all up under the rubber lining in the door as well. He pulled that out and sprayed poison in there as well. I thanked him and paid him and we both walked back to his truck looking like we’d just seen a flying pig. He said to let him know if they come back with more numbers because he’d come out and finish them for free if they did. They didnt. They’re still dead in the door. I didnt wipe them up. Just the sheer number of them alarms me so much. Instinctually i know if i got bit by that many ants i’d be in a world of hurt, so my brain says “danger, danger” any time i open that door. So i just dont open that door. What a car. There’s mud from the tornado and flood waters i got stuck in a year ago all over the front seats and theres a dead ant colony in the back.