Butter Them Up

Back in high school, a friend told me that I should try buttering up our math teacher to try and get her to give me a better grade.  I told him that although the idea was tempting, I'd seen enough cases of student-teacher relationships on the 6:00 news to know that it rarely worked out well.  Besides, using butter sounds awfully messy.  I guess some people just don't like whipped cream.