Burnin' Down the House

Mishaps do occur in my kitchen from time to time, but this one nearly scared the bejesus out of me. One day last week I came in from work and decided to get creative in the kitchen. After cutting chicken breasts into bite size pieces and marinating them in italian dressing, I decided to incorporate some anduille sausage that had been languishing in the fridge for a week. I like to brown the chicken quickly, so I set my favorite skillet on the stove and set the heat all the way to high. I was multitasking as usual, chatting with an old friend online, and said "brb-need to start the chicken before the pan gets too hot". well, the pan was smoking, which seemed like a good thing, but I went ahead and reduced the heat a bit before adding about a tablespoon of olive oil. Apparently the temperature of the pan exceeded the burning point of the olive oil, and before I could blink, I heard POOF and there were flames licking the underside of my upper cabinets. Panicking, with my 6 month lease flashing before my eyes, I doused it with a glass of water, and immediately wondered if that was the best thing to do. It didn't help much, but shortly the flames died down enough to get the pan into the sink with water running full blast. My apartment was filled with smoke, and I opened the patio door to help clear it. I realized at this point that I had left my online friend Mike hanging, so I dashed off a quick note to let him know I would be back once the smoke cleared, evoking the old ROFL response from him. I wasn't going to be discouraged from creating, though. Once I got everything cleaned up, I started over, and the chicken, sausage and pasta was just delicious, thank you. Warning: please don't try this at home!