Mom once told me, "Waste not, son. Take every opportunity that comes your way. And don't you forget it." I never did. So one afternoon, I entered my room to find a burglar in the process of searching my cabinet drawers, rummaging through my clothes. He did not hear me, obviously too ignorant or simply over-confident. I reached for my small handgun in the bureau drawer next to the door, and the burglar turned when he heard the 'click' of the gun being armed.

  There was a brief interlude of silence. We stared at one another, each surprised at the other's intrusion.

  He spoke first, still kneeling on the floor.

  "Awww man! This must be my really bad day. This morning my wife ran off with some young upstart, my kids just chalked up a couple of hundred bucks on my handphone, my......"

  I cut him short, gun barrel fixed in the direction of his face.

  "Tough luck."

  He gulped, and took a short breath.

  "What do you say man, that we come to some sort of agreement here, you know, like some sort of deal?"

  Deal? This was becoming interesting. I motioned him on.

  "Umm, probably you can point that gun of yours in another direction. I don't speak well with something like that pointed at me....."

  "You sound fine to me," I interrupted, an angry expression of impatience written on my face. I could have swore he nearly jumped when my trigger finger twitched a bit.

  "Alright, alright, everyone chill out. We can't have that sweet gun of yours going off, can we? Take my weapon here." He rolled over a metallic silver baseball bat, dented in some places, mostly at both ends. I wondered how many people he had knocked out with that. He continued.

  "Here's the deal. I'll put back whatever I've taken," and out came a gold chain my wife had given me, "and in exchange for all this...... trouble....... I have caused, I'll steal something for you."

  My eyebrows raised, uncertain at what I had just heard.

  "Meaning?"

  "Yeah, steal stuff. Your business rival's latest product designs, or...... a hi-fi set? You want some jewellery for your wife?"

  I snorted, but silently thought, can you steal a woman's heart?

  "Take a look around you. I am capable of buying what I want. I have money. I don't think your services can be of any use to me." My trigger finger twitched again.

  "No! Wait! I'll do anything for you, just don't shoot! I have a family....." He stopped, realising his own contradiction.

  I happened to take a look at my wife's bedside photograph. I had found her in bed with her ex-lover last week, when I returned home unexpectedly from an overseas business trip. We had a rather senseless argument after that, and she insisted on her right to see the ex-lover. I granted her that right, though I knew that all the money and kisses I had spent on her were wasted.

  Never mind the kisses, but I knew I was going to get my money back. I picked up the baseball bat.

  "There's a chess set in the cabinet. Take it out."

  The burglar froze for a second, unsure at what he heard. A nervous glance at my unwavering gun thawed him immediately. He took out the chess set.

  "Go to the dining room and set it up. I believe you know how to play chess."

  "Chess? Hell, I love chess. I represented......"

  "Shut up and get on with it."

  We played three games, each an hour long. The first game tested each other's skill, from which I was quietly amazed at his level of play. Such good minds wasted on a criminal career. He made sure I won, anyway.

  The same courtesy was not extended to our second game, and I lost to him miserably.

  "You're not going to shoot me for that, are you?" he asked.

  "No." I answered while rearranging the pieces for the third game. I was going to shoot him for something else.

  The third game was the most spectacular that afternoon. I had shocked him when I exchanged my queen for one of his pawns, a move which he had not anticipated. That was followed by a sudden assault on his king, and his defense collapsed when the clock struck six. That was also when my wife returned. The gun was on my lap. The baseball bat was on the floor.

  She saw the two of us, and the chess set on the dining table.

  "So Richard, I see that you have gotten yourself a partner for the chess tournament next week." The vacant voice rang in my ears. The burglar looked at the chess-board, and then at me, uneasily. Perhaps he had thought of what I was going to do.

  "Richard, I'm going back to the office later."

  I wondered whose office she was referring to.

  She noticed the gun.

  I stood up, but left the gun on the chair. I bent over and picked up the baseball bat instead. The burglar sat still, mouth slightly agape.

  "Richard, why are you holding a baseball bat? What's the gun doing here, and why are you......."

  The first blow sent her to the floor.

  The second blow crushed her skull with a loud crack.

  The third disfigured her face in a bloody heap.

  The burglar stammered, a disbelieving gaze looking at the body, and then at me.

  "You..... you killed her!"

  I put down the baseball bat, and took the gun.

  "Nonsense, you did."

  The two shots sent him backwards, and he landed on the floor, motionless.

  I wiped my fingerprints off the bat soon afterwards, and managed to put it in the burglar's hand before rigor mortis set in. My dead wife was the ex-chairperson of the local chess club, so it wasn't very difficult for me to put up a convincing story to the police. The insurance company paid me the million in full, and the burglar's relatives even managed to send me a few thousand dollars. Ha.

  Just like what my momma loved to say.

  If fate sent you a lemon, you made lemonade.

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