I'm sure it works, but this is just gross

For all that I usually get one or two every summer, the whole idea of the salon pedicure bothers me, largely because of the imagery of these Korean women, heads bowed, tending to the feet of middle-class Americans. I usually deal with my liberal guilt by giving the woman who does the pedicure a ridiculously large tip, but that never makes me feel a whole lot better. I mean, spending your day trimmung cuticles off of FEET? Yuck. You want to talk about a soul-killing job, there it is -- right up there with toll-taker at the George Washington Bridge and the surly woman who used to operate the elevator at Hahne and Company in Newark where I first worked right out of college. Her job was to go up, stopping on every floor, and then down, stopping on every floor. All day. Five days a week. Eight hours a day.

So I guess anything that makes the jobs of these women easier is just dandy. But as someone who saw Jaws in its first weekend and didn't go to the beach for two years, and who is a virtual jellyfish buffet when I'm in Jamaica, this just seems too weird:

Fish pedicures are creating something of a splash in the D.C. area, where a northern Virginia spa has been offering them for the past four months. John Ho, who runs the Yvonne Hair and Nails salon with his wife, Yvonne Le, said 5,000 people have taken the plunge so far.

"This is a good treatment for everyone who likes to have nice feet," Ho said.

He said he wanted to come up with something unique while finding a replacement for pedicures that use razors to scrape off dead skin. The razors have fallen out of favor with state regulators because of concerns about whether they're sanitary.

Ho was skeptical at first about the fish, which are called garra rufa but typically known as doctor fish. They were first used in Turkey and have become popular in some Asian countries.

But Ho doubted they would thrive in the warm water needed for a comfortable footbath. And he didn't know if customers would like the idea.

"I know people were a little intimidated at first," Ho said. "But I just said, 'Let's give it a shot.' "

Customers were quickly hooked.