I have experienced this quite a few times and I guess I'm too Yankee for it to work on me. IMO, they're not "manners" when you're being rude/condescending, and if they're blessing my heart to be nasty I just return fire as if they'd said what they meant. This made me a minor celebrity among my wife's Louisiana relatives when I barked back at a particularly snooty bless-your-hearter during a family picnic. She turned out to be the dragon lady aunt that everyone was afraid to cross. I had not yet been introduced. She doesn't speak to me now, which is cool because she's a truly miserable person. All the cousins-in-law are jealous too.
I have experienced this quite a few times and I guess I'm too Yankee for it to work on me. IMO, they're not "manners" when you're being rude/condescending, and if they're blessing my heart to be nasty I just return fire as if they'd said what they meant. This made me a minor celebrity among my wife's Louisiana relatives when I barked back at a particularly snooty bless-your-hearter during a family picnic. She turned out to be the dragon lady aunt that everyone was afraid to cross. I had not yet been introduced. She doesn't speak to me now, which is cool because she's a truly miserable person. All the cousins-in-law are jealous too.