Judy Garland may have been born in a trunk, but she has nothing on me.

I was hugged by a trunk.

Caressed by a trunk. Drooled and slobbered on by a trunk. Actually, it was one trunk that did the hugging, and five trunks that did the caressing, drooling and slobbering.

Call it 'Phant Paradise: There I was, on a recent humid afternoon, surrounded by 19 tons of pachyderm poundage: Tasha, Savanna, Moja, Victoria and Callee, five of the six African Bush Elephants who live, love and lounge at the Pittsburgh Zoo. (Jackson was there, too, but the hefty bull is not reporter friendly ... even Willie Theilson, the zoo's elephant manager, has trouble getting close to the Alpha 'Phant, the father of the calves that Moja and Savanna are birthing in June.)

I love animals and I love zoos, and my homework proves that the Pittsburgh Zoo (and PPG Aquarium, which I am saving for another day, another column) ranks high on the must-do list. It's not the San Diego Zoo (nothing is), but it's a wonderfully laid-out, extremely user-friendly and super-clean 77-acre gem. If the animals look happy (and they did), I'm happy.

So off I went playing the role of Carrot Top, feeding the cut-up veggie to the quintet of elephants. I have been around elephants before but never thisclose. I could reach out (and I did), feeling their textured skin that looks like aerial views of parched desert terrain. Willie and his staff of four give the babes a bath each day; Tasha had just been hosed down and was now air-drying. I pet her and pieces of dead skin so easily fall off in my hand that it forces me to seriously entertain the thought of coming back in another life as a loofah.

I could see all of the elephants have warm brown eyes, and many have eyelashes longer than even the most outrageous drag queen -- Moja's lashes are a good 6 inches long! I could see their oversized, wafer-thin ears. So thin are their ears that when blood is taken for regular physicals, the veins that protrude from the ears are the ones pricked with a teeny needle. I laugh when Willie tells me that even an 11,000-pound 'phant like Jackson winces when he knows a needle is a-comin' -- what a big baby!

But it's the trunks that mesmerize me. Each weighs about 200 pounds -- thick, gray tubes o' muscle and blood and nerves that are punctuated with coarse, wiry black hair. The elephants maneuver their trunks hypnotically; I stare at each as if it's a dancing cobra, no longer part of a beast but a creature all its own. Each tip is slimy and has two "nostrils." As they take carrots from my hand, the ends of the trunk curl, allowing the beasts to grasp the carrots then toss them in waiting mouths.

Willie shows me a trick: He utters the word "trunk" and the elephants move their trunks away from their faces. He utters "open" and their mouths unfold, allowing me to slam dunk carrots directly into the source. It's not a pretty sight -- huge teeth yellowed with decades of plaque, remnants of mashed hay and carrot and a bloated bright tongue better left not to be described. Willie does allow me to touch the pink pillow of flesh ... Quick! Where's the Purell?

I tried to get the 'phants to fish carrots out of my pocket. Nothing doing. I tried putting a carrot in my mouth, hoping for a smooch, and something to tell the boys later that night. Nothing doing.

I do kiss their trunks (after being assured I wouldn't catch some rare disease) and it was like kissing my really old Italian grandmother. And Moja does come over and (at Willie's command) gives me a big ol' hug.

Every once and a while, the elephants make really weird noises. Willie calls it "vocalizing," but it sounds like a cross between a jalopy failing to start and a toilet flushing. Willie tells me it's their way of saying, "Everything is cool." I think it's more like, "Hey Guys! We got a sucker over here!"

They say elephants never forget. Even if Tasha, Savanna, Moja, Victoria and Callee forget me, I will never forget them.

And I will never be able to look at a carrot in exactly the same way.