The Regulation of Flesh Eating Fish

In Arizona, the Goldwater Institute (a conservative watchdog agency) brought a lawsuit against the Arizona Board of Cosmetology.

It seems that the Arizona Board of Cosmetology has decided that it has the authority to regulate a practice that is gaining popularity at nail salons, where customers pay $30.00 to plunge their feet into a clean (?!?!?) tank filled with fish who nibble on the customers feet, removing dead skin.

I can see how the Goldwater Institute would take up this cause, because if there was ever free-enterprise at its peak, this has got to be it.

After all, whod’a thunk that you could get people to pay money for this?

Now, mind you, I’m not judging. But since I swim like a rock and seldom go into water where I cannot see my feet for the specific purpose of PREVENTING little fish or other critters who happen to live in the vicinity from chewing my feet off, I can’t imagine that this is a treatment that I would embrace any more than being bled by leeches.

In the central United States, there is a practice called “noodling”, where grown men – I suspect usually under the influence of alcohol if not stronger substances – jump in the river and start feeling along the banks for holes in which enormous catfish make their homes.  There don't seem to be any women noodlers, seemingly having more common sense than the male of the species.

These are the whoppers – 50 pounds up – and they “feel” for the fish in their lairs.

Mind you, if I “felt” one of these, the immediate area around where I was swimming would have to be evacuated because of man-made pollution in the water.

Braver – or drunker – men than I, however, embrace this sport and once they find the fish they reach into it’s mouth to encourage it to bite down and be dragged out of its hole.

This in water that has the consistency and opaqueness of coffee with creamer in it.

Injuries in an extreme sport like this would seem to be inevitable. Grandpa Johnson swore that his cousin had an arm bit off when he was a child while engaged in such activity.

I have no idea if this is true, since Grandpa was prone to kidding and the alleged victim, as with so many urban legends, was long dead before I came along.

Probably because he tried to keep noodlin’ when he only had one arm.

A few years back we went snorkeling while in the Carribean. I was more than content to blow up my vest and float around while sucking roughly half of the Atlantic Ocean into my lungs through the snorkel, looking at the pretty fish from a distance. It was, in my opinion, the equivalent of driving through a nice neighborhood to look at the homes. Nobody was really hurting anything.

One of the guys that was with the excursion, however, decided to “call out” a very large eel for us to see.

If polled, I suspect that no one over the age of 16 had any desire to see an eel any way other than through the glass at an aquarium. Under maritime laws excursion boats are not a democracy, though, and the will of the majority does not always prevail.

After failing to lure the beast out with bait, he decided to poke at him with a stick to encourage him to come out and visit with the tourists.

Eventually, Mr. (or Ms., I’m not sure) Eel came out with a vengeance, attempting to sink it’s teeth into the guy with a stick while everyone still in the water who was paying attention attempted to perform a miracle and walk on the water out of the immediate area.

I was on the boat enjoying a complimentary drink already. After that, I wasn’t much inclined to get back in the water, whether I could see my feet or not. This was THEIR ‘hood, and I was just cruising through from the wrong side of the tracks. What business do I have agitating the locals?

So with this background, I’m amazed that a salon owner can convince people to pay her – PAY HER – $30.00 to let them put their feet in a tank with these fish, who will eat their flesh.

Although it sounds like a “B” movie, this is a free market economy at it’s best, and it’s begin thwarted by some regulatory people who have no respect for the need of simple, honest working folk to have their flesh eaten by fish.

Oh, the reason for prohibiting the practice?

The little fish can’t be sterilized.

I can see how that’s a problem. I bet there are few veterinary schools that teach fish sterilization, at least as a core course. It looks like they could put them on little birth control pills, though, rather than having to sterilize them. Then everyone’s needs could be met.