SOUTHERN EXPOSURE: SOMETIMES DEJA VU JUST DOESN'T NEED TO BE REPEATED

"Vu" is a part of the word "to see" in French. I think "deja" is "already" or something like that.

So deja vu is something that has already been seen.

I have a lot of deja vu. It usually happens through my dreams -- which can be quite detailed and unusual. In fact, one of my dreams became a reality Saturday night.

It wouldn't be unusual for some of you to misinterpret that statement and think that something really exciting happened. It didn't; and that's the problem.

Let me start from the beginning. I don't know how long ago this was -- probably about seven or eight months ago -- I had a really weird dream about being in a pool hall.

I dreamt that I was standing beside a pool table and a certain kind of music was playing. I was doing well; I remember feeling good about the way I was playing. I also remember handing the pool cue to another person and feeling a tug as they took it out of my hand.

That's it. Nothing too exciting there. Just very detailed and a little weird. Maybe a minute's worth of dream time.

Well, all of that happened Saturday night at the Clubhouse Grill on Independence. I was shooting pool with a friend of mine, doing well, music playing, right kind of place. Handing the cue off brought that feeling of deja vu on.

When it happened I stopped what I was doing and waited for whatever spectacular event was supposed to accompany this feeling. After all, I had dreamt of this moment -- wasn't that supposed to mean something?

Wasn't Ed McMahon supposed to walk through the door after searching for me since Super Bowl Sunday with a suitcase full of cash? Wasn't the future Ex-Mrs. Angier supposed to suddenly look in my direction with a sparkle in her eye straight out of a Miller Lite commercial?

I stood there beside my pool table with arms outstretched and eyes closed waiting in near-religious fervor for whatever it was to happen. Instead, all I saw when I opened my eyes were a bunch of drunks staring back at me with mixed expressions of fear, disgust and understanding written across their faces.

"Day-ssa Bu esperence, huh?" slurred one man. "I get 'em all de time, too."

The only thing that happened that night was I sunk the eight ball on a break. The first time I've ever done that.

I am not such a fanatical pool player, nor am I even that interested in the game, to think that I wasted precious sleep ESP on a simple little thing like sinking the eight on the break. Then again, it would be just the type of thing that would happen to me.

I am God's weeble. You know, weebles wobble but they don't fall down. God loves to throw these types of things at me out of left field to see me wobble around like a bow-tied weeble until I finally stop, upright but dizzy. I can imagine him up in heaven seven months ago saying, "a vision about sinking the eight on the break? I love it! He'll never be able to figure this one out."

From what my history would lead me to believe, these types of wasted deja vu experiences are just setting me up to miss the big one. That one time when I dream about something significant happening.

It'll be a truly unusual dream, probably involving a seaside restaurant with talking lobsters or something, that will prelude my winning a Pulitzer Prize.

When it starts to actually happen in reality I'll probably get up and storm right out of the restaraunt, shouting something nearly incoherent about being sick of being God's weeble. Just then the lobsters will start to sing, Ed will sit down at my now-vacant table and begin a conversation with Elle McPherson, who just happened to be stopping in for a drink and some company.

God should get a good laugh out of that one.

David Angier is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.