A couple of weeks ago I went to go see a woman about a cat. The woman was my neighbour (we’ll call her L) and she had lost her tabby, Karma. (That’s the cat’s name – I’m not saying L had it coming.) Karma had been gone for weeks and her family was distraught. The entire neighbourhood had been trying, without luck, to look for her.
And then, one day, when I was looking out of the window, I saw Karma peeking out from the dilapidated shed at the bottom of my garden, just a couple of doors down from her official home. I was thrilled. Not just because I’d get to reunite the pet with her family but – rather more selfishly – I thought this might elevate me to “local hero” status in my Philadelphia neighbourhood.
More specifically, I thought this might ingratiate me with the local ice-cream van man. There is no price list on the ice-cream van, you see: the guy charges whatever he feels like. People who have been in the area for a long time, including L, pay $1. Interlopers like me, however, pay a surcharge: the last time I got my kid a cone I was charged $6.50. I would have objected but I had a sugar-crazed toddler in tow and I figured that citing title 15, section 13 (discrimination in price, services or facilities) of the United States Code would do me no favours. Philadelphia is the birthplace of the country, after all; it’s not fond of uppity Englishwomen laying down the law.
Anyway, my discount ticket was in sight: off I trotted to L’s house to tell her that Karma was in my garden. Together we tried, and failed, to get Karma to go home. Alas, it seems as though the bloody cat, which was originally a street cat before L took her in, now wants to live outdoors. It divides its time between the alleyway and my garden – which it uses as a toilet. Every day I try to convince it, very politely, to leave. But the cat comes back the very next day. It looks as if I am stuck paying full price for ice-cream for the foreseeable. Karma really is a bitch.
• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
