Jason :
Thanks for the post. I found it only AFTER I found another solution. I am not for sure which is more robust or which requires less typing. Here is the solution that I found searching TUG.
\usepackage{threeparttable}
\begin{table}
\begin{threeparttable}
\begin{tabular}{cc}
something weird\tnote{a} & something even weirder\tnote{b}
\end{tabular}
\begin{tablenotes}
\item [a] What is so weird?
\item [b] Oh that is what is weird
\end{tablenotes}
\end{threeparttable}
\end{table}
The surrounding table makes sure that table handles the float. There are some options that are provided by the package. Additionally, the package ctable will do something similar. However, ctable requires a totally new syntax structure for building the table. Thus, I used threeparttable and it WORKED.

Thank you so much, that was so nice trick.