Pre-Owned. Way to Recycling Good Stuff.

BELOW - Some of the more than 100 parakeets rescued by animal control officers, shown dozing off at a Cat Animal Shelter in Seattle, Washington.

Creative marketers and entrepreneurs constantly come up with new words to describe old products or services, with the end-view of getting briskier sales.

Yesterday's car for sale was simply called a used car or second-hand car. And those selling them, used car salesmen.

But the people buying second-hand cars somehow did not like the idea of driving a used car. So, savvy marketers came up with a brilliant euphemism: pre-owned car.

Today, there are no more used or second hand products. There are just pre-owned merchandise, or those with second experience, as in a children's used toys and accessories store.

There's also an organization called Second Harvest, a not-for-profit which collects and gathers surplus food from restaurants and hotels and bakeries, and offer them to the homeless people, or bring them to kitchen soups.

There's also a business I've seen with the words "with memories," again, a seller of used products.

In North America, there's a huge market for used clothing, household and office furniture, fixtures, toys, electronics, and a wide array of other products.

That's why Goodwill Stores abound; people donate their unwanted and used items, and other people with a need for them, buy them! Similar stores selling recycled goods are now called Value or Thrift stores.

You also see flea markets, garage and yard sales everywhere you go , especially during summer.

In the Philippines, used clothings end up in the Ukay-Ukay; the merchandise for sale usually coming from the US and Canada.

When I was new in Toronto, Ontario's Blue Sunday law was still in effect; this meant that shops were closed on Sundays. Only drugstores, flea markets and merchandisers located within the tourism areas were allowed to open.

So, people who wanted to shop on Sunday began populating the flea markets. I remember driving as far away as Pickering, about a 30-minute drive from home, just to buy a bike shirt and a lampshade, or to Dr's Flea Market, a 45-minute drive, or even to the Dixie Mall Flea Market in Mississauga, where you had to pay .25 cents to enter the Flea Market.

Then suddenly, the Ontario province realized the need to bring back business on Sundays to spur its economy. Now, shops are open 7 days a week.

If individuals want to energize their flagging relationships or their dating/social networking experience, maybe they can also come up with a strategy similar to what the business enterprises did.

For instance, if re-igniting the flame is the purpose, then the spouses can come up with a "second life," for themselves, just like what the Avatar site has been doing.

A "second life" is the dream-fantasy each spouse would weave; a make-believe world that each spouse can create and live in (live out) and hopefully, one that they can merge and inhabit...together.

Now, for those divorced people who prowl various social networking/dating sites, or who advertise in Personal Ads, instead of Divorce in the status line, maybe the word Pre-Owned can be used.

It's cuter. It signifies experience, wisdom. It shows marketability - someone already committed to him/her before. It gives the image of one having been road tested and has been proven to work once...again.

For Article about rescued parakeets, go to www.seattlepi.com/local/309227_birds28.html