Illegal.

Fargo, ND—Authorities were dispatched to a north Fargo neighborhood yesterday afternoon as one witness called to report what sounded like “A raging cauldron full of boiling guts” rumbling in his neighbor’s back yard.

Police arrived to find Todd Fox, a resident infamous for melting snow with a flamethrower, presiding over a 10,000-gallon propane-powered boiling vat of grease which contained a full, beer-battered Holstein cow.

“I seen it on TV, thought it’d be a good idea,” said Fox, who appeared to be referring to an Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode in which character Master Shake flash-fries a fully intact, battered cow in his residential neighborhood driveway. Fox was armed to the teeth with enough empty bottles of vegetable oil to kill a sperm whale, 10 propane-powered Nipco space heaters, a hydraulic hoist and a 10,000-gallon stainless steel tank he said he bought “real cheap at my uncle Burp’s flea market.”

Police would have none of it as they arrested Fox on charges of reckless endangerment and possession of livestock without a permit. When asked how he obtained the deceased animal, Fox declared “I know me a butcher.”