When it comes to winning friends and influencing people, no one can resist you if you know how to cook a succulent, showy lobster dinner. But if you really want to melt their butter, show them you can teach the ungainly two-pound insect to stand on its head. No kidding, its easy - you just have to rub it the right way.

Step 1: Get a Live One

The further your little friend is from the Grim Reaper, the more delicious his flesh will taste, so pick out a feisty one at the seafood market. When you have your date in the kitchen and a couple glasses of wine later, grip the lobster by the carapace (that's what educated types call the hard shell on the lobster's back - prior to getting punched) while remembering to keep your fleshy protuberances clear as it tries to grab you with its claws in a pathetic food-chain mismatch.

Step 2: Stoke It

Place your fine-tastin' crustacean stomach-down on a flat surface and hold it in place with your left hand. With your right index finger, soothe the savage beast by gently stroking it from the very end of its nose-like thingamajig to a point about two inches up its back, then reversing direction. To keep your lobster calm, be sure it's not staring straight at the pot of boiling water that spells its imminent demise. Try singing love ballads from the songbook of Peter Allen.

Step 3: Stand It Up

After two or three minutes, the creature should stop moving as it succumbs to your mystical powers. Now with your left hand, stand it on its head and two claws. The lobster will probably start moving again in a last-ditch effort to nip off one of your fingers, or else it'll snag your wallet, skitter out the back door, and hail itself a taxi to return to the sea. Rub its back for a few more minutes and it'll go comatose again, this time in an entertaining tripod position. Put It to Bed

Step 4: Put It to Bed

Now let go. The little bugger will stand still in a trance, hypnotized by your gentle stroking, all of its fluids rushing to its teeny little head. With any luck your date will now be sufficiently smitten: just don't forget to banish them to the living room before you insensitively boil the entertainment alive. Later, when you've both gorged your fill (and cleansed yourself of that icky stench of the deep), start rubbing your date from their nose up to their forehead... - Albert Baime