If you were a 25 year old woman with four children, a job at a fast food restaurant, no electricity in your trailer, and a restraining order against your last boyfriend, what would you do?

I just asked my kid this question, and his answer was “rob a bank,” god bless him. I didn’t even think of that and neither did Gilberta Estrada. Instead, she hung herself and her children this morning. The baby survived, rescued by Gilberta’s sister. They lived in Hudson Oaks, Texas, where less than five years ago, another mother shot her three children before killing herself.

Andrea Yates lived in Texas and so did Deanna Laney, who beat her two young sons to death in 2003. There are more, but you get the point. What goes on in Texas? Is it the poverty, the Christian family values charade, the ignorance, or something in the water?

I feel Gilberta’s desperation. I wouldn’t dream of passing judgment on her. It takes a village, or something. But I guess you can’t find one in Texas.

I think the story of the 400 pound gorilla who escaped from his compound at the Rotterdam zoo is unusually rich in metaphor and mystery.

The gorilla, named Bokito, ran over to a 57 year old woman who had visited the gorilla nearly every day for the last ten years, and attacked her. He sat on her, bit her, and dragged her around. From her hospital bed, the woman has said she has no ill feelings toward Bokito, stating: “He is and remains my darling.”

My first thought was that this exemplifies that battered wife syndrome. Then I decided that it was a metaphor for every marriage. Know what I mean? A 400 pound gorilla attacks you, so to speak, but eh, he’s still your darling.

Now I’m wondering how the gorilla saw things. Was he mad because the woman wasn’t paying attention to him that day? Did he feel spurned? Or was he getting even with her for bothering him for ten years (often taking photos and even making videos of him, according to her.)   I need to know.

It also reminds me of a stupid joke my dad used to tell, with a Yiddish accent, about two old Jewish ladies. Sadie goes to the zoo with her friend Rose, and she’s attacked and raped by a huge gorilla! Rose goes to visit Sadie in the hospital a week later, and asks how she’s feeling. “How do you think I’m feeling!” Sadie exclaims. “It’s been seven days and he hasn’t bothered to call me!”