Selling Items When A Curse/Trap Occurs

[FrogNipple]

Greetings all! My name is Keith and I am a Munchkin Bites and Munchkin Bites Pants Macabre owner.

*For those of you searching the forum to settle a dispute or answer a question, even though the question was born out of Munchkin Bites, the answers apply to other versions that have traps and curses.*

Recently playing we had a dispute about when one could sell items during their turn.

The rules say: "Selling Items: During your turn, you may discard items worth 1,000 gold pieces and immediately go up one level. ... You may not sell, trade, or steal items DURING a fight."

During a zealous player's turn, he kicked down a door and it was a trap/curse to lose one item. He had one item in play and one in his hand whose total gold was worth 1,000 gold pieces. So he tried to sell the item in play and the item in his hand to go up a level to dodge the curse/trap.

His interpretation of the rules took them to mean that anytime except during combat one can sell items to go up a level. So since getting cursed or trapped isn't combat, he could do it.

I said no because when curses and traps come out face up they apply immediately. So logically, the flow of time would dictate that one doesn't decide to sell items until there's a reason, like losing an item from a curse. So the curse applies and then you don't have an item to sell.

Furthermore, if we were to use his interpretation of the rules, then we should be allowed to do other things "in the past" like "oh, I sold those items you're taking now last turn so... my bad, you can't have them... and I go up a level." Which would be garbage.

Thoughts?