blow a stack

Anger. The building pressure of intense and focused anger finally overcomes the best efforts of containment, repression, and self-control. Rage. The inevitable and imminent eruption of loosed anger is foreshadowed by purpling of the face, flaring of the nostrils, arteries bulging in the neck, and eyeballs popping out of the head. These symptoms indicate that someone is about blow a stack. It's what happened when a student shit in Mr. Sparaco's desk drawer (7th grade). It's best to leave immediately if one is on the business end of a blown stack, otherwise very entertaining to watch. Origin from the steam engine era, when a mistakenly capped chimney stack would finally rupture from pressure in the furnace.