Alright...it was a bad year a few years back when my son, Matt, came into the house after going out and opening our pop-up camper. "The camper's ruined," is all he said.

I immediately had visions of Matt, in typical style, standing by as it rolled down over the embankment. That wasn't the case. What happened was far worse. Mice had built winter nests in the canvas. Not only was it chewed to shreds but every cushion and mattress was drenched in mouse urine and excrement. Bad.

That year, we ended up trading in the camper (what was left of it) for another pop-up. Everything went pretty well until this year.

Once the pop-up was, err, popped up, little 5-year-old Evan went inside. Suddenly a loud screech (like I make when I see a spider) came from inside the camper. Afraid something had happened I came around and said, "you okay, Evan?"

"Ewwwwe, look!"

Marie-Anne and I looked inside at the same time. I saw a couple hundred big ants in one corner on the wall and mattress. Marie-Anne, whose eyes are better than mine, also saw the maggots that the ants were carrying. Not good. Not good at all.

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Returning with a spray can of Ortho, she begins spraying them down. I just watched in awe as they died and fell off the walls, both inside and out. I have to admit, my skin crawled a little as I saw the ants and maggots fall to the ground.

After the pests had all been killed, we continued setting up the camper, which had no destroyed canvas, and Marie-Anne plans to go out and sweep away the carcasses. Whatever caused the infestation is not evident because there was no bad smell and the camper had been cleaned before storage.

Marie-Anne and Evan still plan on sleeping in it tonight as the little guy has been looking forward to it. I'm sure glad I'm not, LOL. I'm seriously laughing out loud at that, by the way!

Great. As I look out at the camper from my office, I see I cranked it up forgetting about the WD-40 we'd been using. Better go grab a ladder.

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