How to bring the house down - fried food fail

I am a good little southern gal, and yet I didn't try to fry anything until I was 27 years old (sidenote:  I miss being so young).  I watch Food Network with the vigor of a starving child that you see on infomercials, and got really excited about a recipe for beer battered tilapia.  I got all the ingredients together and heated the oil up, battered my tilapia filets and threw them into the pan.  This resulted in an explosive mushroom cloud of black, smelly, scalding smoke erupting in my kitchen.  The recipe of course assumed a basic level of kitchen competence and didn't bother to inform me that things such as oil temperature are important to consider when it comes to frying.  My dog Lucy had been trying to kill me/escape imprisonment for years, and she let out a howl and flew out the backdoor without so much as a glance back in my direction (Lassie, she was not).

Amid the wailing of the smoke alarm, I removed the pot from the stove and I opened the only two windows in the house that weren't painted shut, as well as the backdoor and the front door.  I lived in a nice neighborhood at the time, but as many of my friends will tell you, I have the uncanny ability to attract very unique and imbalanced individuals.  As such, I thought it would be wise to sit on the front steps of my house so that no one would feel the urge to sneak into my house, in spite of the fact that it was very obviously on fire.  I tried to get Lucy to come sit with me, but she was busy bravely hiding behind the shed at the time, and her growl told me that she didn't want to walk through the kitchen to get to the front stoop.  It took 4 hours before I could breathe in the house again.  I learned two valuable lessons that day: 1. find out what temp the oil should be before you throw bits of meat into it, and 2. in a city like mine, your neighbors will not call the fire department under any circumstance.

Lucy, not saving me from danger.