I'm Back!

It was a sad couple of days. My power supply to my laptop died! Stephen ordered me a new one, but it took a couple of days to arrive... but never fear... I'm back in business. And boy do I have a story to tell you... I will preface that it is one of the most horrifying stories you may ever hear... here we go.

So a week ago or so we started noticing black carpenter ants in the car. At first it was just a couple, but then one day I must have killed like 30 or so. It was tres disgusting. So I took the car to the car wash and vacuumed the inside hoping I was killing them all.
For a bit it seemed like I was on top of the problem, but along came a somewhat warm day here in New England, and the ants were just everywhere. Then we noticed where they were coming from: the car seat! Now let me remind you, these are carpenter ants - the kind that feed on wood and such - not food ants. So when we got home from work and daycare Stephen took the car seat out of the car, took off the cover and found maybe two dozen ants. I was pretty grossed out but Stephen sucked them all up with the shop vac and we thought that was it. Au contraire mon frere.
He then looked into the base of the car seat and saw THOUSANDS of ants - a true infestation! So he rapidly began sucking them out with the vacuum thinking we were getting ahead of the game. Wrong again. He then banged the seat on the ground and they were seriously coming out of the entire seat. Jack had been sitting on a nest of carpenter ants! Makes me itchy thinking about it again. The ants were in the base, in the nooks, in the crannies, in the styrofoam safety inserts... just everywhere. There was no way we'd ever be able to use this $300 car seat again.
So Stephen put Baby Man to bed and I boogied on down to Target to get a replacement seat asap. In the meantime, Stephen sprayed the seat with ant spray and killed them all. There was ant doody everywhere. It was so disgusting!
The interesting thing is that when we first installed the seat in the car we noticed a dead ant in the box, but we thought nothing of it. 'Til now!
So the next day I get on the phone with the folks at Britax, tell them the whole sordid story and all they cared about was the lot number and the serial number. They were not that interested in finding out if the ant issue began in their factory or warehouse. So then I called Toys R Us. They were much more accommodating. After telling my whole story several times to different people, they agreed to replace the seat for free.
So now we've shipped back the old seat, we're using the interim seat (which I will then be able to return to Target) and just wait for the replacement seat to come.
Isn't that the nastiest story? I have pictures, but I'm not sure you really want to see them. If you're anywhere close to mealtime, the answer is definitely no. In fact, you're going to have to vote to let me know if you want to see the photos. Vote early and vote often! (in the sidebar to the left)