By Hetty Leadbelly as well as contributing writer and brilliant person all around, Wilhelmina Beatrice Glendale

We in the South do not mess around with being direct and saying what we really feel, especially if we’re feeling untoward, um, toward someone. It’s too hot and humid out here to be blunt and to the point; we simply don’t have the energy. The person who’s wrongly stirred up those untoward feelings doesn’t have the energy to fire back either. Nor is she interested in making enemies of people she’s bound to run into the next day at Mon Junis or Piccadilly.

In Northwest Louisiana, we all are separated from one another by scarcely a degree, whether by relation, marriage or job.  So, it’s best not to make an enemy out of a person because surely you will make ten more.

Therefore, Southerners developed a ready response to those who have stoked our ire that is polite, gracious and simple. It leaves the ire stoker digesting that response for a while, like honey-drizzled, hot-buttered biscuits with way too heavy gravy on them.

That response is, of course, “Bless your heart.”

Because “Bless your heart can be used in so many situations, Heliopolis has developed a Bless Your Heart scale, in which different situations are given 1-6 hearts, depending on the level of offense likely produced. We’ve also provided a handy guide on how the number of hearts would translate into spoken words, if you were so rude and crude as to say what you were really thinking out loud. But bless your heart, we’re sure you would never do that.

#of Hearts Translation

1 Heart: You’re just too cute for words!
2 Hearts: Oh no, you did NOT just say that.
3 Hearts: You are a special kind of stupid, aren’t you?
4 Hearts: Fuck you.
5 Hearts: You will wake up one day soon in Venice, Louisiana with no money or ID or clothes on, for that matter.
6 Hearts: I will drive a stake into your evil heart.

When are you due? (You are not pregnant.)
A Yankee says, “Bless Your Heart.”
Do you have a church home?
What cute kids you have. How many daddies do they have?
Creationism should be taught in science so people can have both viewpoints.
Waving a Confederate flag.
You have such an unusual, natural look.
I”m just glad we finally got a first lady with class back in the White House
This roux doesn’t taste like you made it from scratch.
What comfortable shoes you’re wearing.
You’re not from around here, are you?
You take your tea unsweetened?
Slaves were treated very well by their masters.
You need to let your house get bulldozed so the I-49 Inner City Connector can be built and I’ll lose a few minutes off of,my commute time.
Prayers for the victims of that mass shooting.
I like the stripes in your hair. Oh, they’re highlights? Who in Bossier did them?
Sharia law is being forced on us.
Jambalaya with kale in it.
Christians have no rights in our country.
Louisiana summers
Dumb, useless rating systems