the nuclear apocalypse finally happened, but it was surprisingly toothless, overall. the sky turned a little redder for no reason, and a couple areas of the world were well and truly fucked, but on the whole a lot of the bombs didn't end up detonating properly, so most of the world's infrastructure and indeed population was spared. somehow there wasn't a lot of widespread looting apart from a few bad apples, as most people's reactions were essentially just overwhelming relief, and electricity and communications were back online within a couple days for most people living in or near major cities, though power use had to be kept to a minimum, so no A/C and most people kept their lights off. supermarkets had lines of people waiting to get food, and it wasn't like there were a lot of treats or anything, but it was pretty livable. even the internet was back up within a couple months, and we mostly just had a good laugh about it.
somehow the radiation (which was just normal, kill-you radiation) still made ants become giant, but by giant i mean giant for ants, which is to say about the size of a small cat. they still mostly just ate sugar so they tended to be nuisances, carrying off cans of sprite and stuff. their pheromonal trails were visible (and visibly gross and crusty) to the naked eye, but they weren't all that smart so you could just scuff 'em up with your boot and the giant ants would wander to the end of the trail and then turn around, confused.