There's a lot I don't understand about New York, but one of the strangest is the flourishing massage field. On the high end, Caucasians with diplomas rub you for upwards of two hundred dollars an hour. Slightly out of my range, considering my whole retirement plan is based on the premise that doctors only charge a quarter of that. I don't get it. It's not justified. I'm certainly not paying that kind of money to some tofu-eating yoga dabbler with bedhead.

On the low end of the spectrum, Chinese people set up tents at street fairs, drag in a couple of massage chairs, and offer ten minute massages to people for ten bucks.

Which works out to an hourly rate that's double what I earn with nearly a college degree.

In my view, these establishments serve exactly one purpose: they explain why foreigners pay people to smuggle them into the U.S. Just picture the bedtime stories they tell in Shanghai: "In America," Auntie Chen says little Mai Li, "you put a chair out on the street and squeeze somebody's buttocks for a minute, and they give you thirty million yuan!"

"That's bullshit," little Mai says. "Now tell me about that nanny who flies with her umbrella again."

I'm far too cheap to buy into any part of this scam, but recently a well-meaning friend gave me a gift certificate for a foot massage. I tried to keep an open mind. It could, possibly, be worth the money. Half an hour of bliss and a day or two floating on air would almost justify the price. Seconds after the guy started, though, I knew we weren't getting there. He didn't seem to know what he was doing, and I'd squeezed chicken nuggets with more oomph.

"As hard as you can," I instructed.

"I'm just warming up," he replied.

Right then and there, I nearly leapt up and stormed out. "Warming up"? For that kind of money, I expect dudes to stretch beforehand. I pay my plumber by the hour, and I'm not just going to sit there while he gets in touch with his tools. Minutes passed and, if anything, my masseur just got worse. The spa called this treatment "reflexology," but it felt like somebody was just randomly, absent-mindedly squeezing me, like a Jewish mother with bad aim. This massage was supposed to be about my pleasure, but here -- laying flat on the table, with my pants off -- I felt like I wasn't the center of attention. I felt like my pleasure was an afterthought.

Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to me. Not only was he being too soft, but he was also just using one hand.

Now, regular readers here know about my past with foot fetishists. I wear size thirteen shoes, so I am to foot fetishists what Justin Beiber is to twelve-year-old girls. I'd worried about this earlier. We've all heard that tired old maxim, "Do what you love." Do what you love. "Why, I love feet!" some of these dudes must have thought, and they could easily have ended up here.

So, against my better judgment, I raised my head. I saw the masseur staring straight down, a wide smile on his face, and I followed his gaze. And sure enough, he'd whipped it out. There it was, out in the open, firmly held in one hand.

"No," I said, hoisting myself to my elbows. "Definitely not."

He glanced up and shot me a guilty look. "Sorry," he said. "I was hoping you wouldn't notice."

"Well, I noticed. And now you can put it away."

It looked like he was going to follow my direction, but then he balked. "At least let me finish. It'll just take a second."

"No," I repeated. "I don't want to see it. And frankly, I think it's insulting. Sure, I'm half-naked, laying here in my underwear, but you know what? I still demand respect. In my day, anybody who saw these feet would have masturbated over them."

"Really?" he replied. "Well, they're okay feet, but -- " And then his BlackBerry shook and he punched a key. "Hang on, I just got another text."