People spend the first half of their lives accumulating stuff and the last half getting rid of it. That’s the story of eBay. And of my parents — except for the getting-rid-of-it part. If their life were a Frank Capra movie, it would be called “You Can’t Throw It Away.” Or, in the language of reality TV: “Hoarders: Rubber-Band and Rotary-Phone Edition.” Which is great if you want to put your hands on that lifelike machine gun you had when you were 9. But not so great when it comes time to sell the house.

We’re talking 50 years’ worth of stuff. The prospect of clearing it out had been looming for a while. My mother hadn’t lived there in two years, after a fall sent her into a nursing home. My dad died in ’97. The place was empty, except for a student who rented the top floor for $400 a month and my occasional visits from L.A. Not the wisest use of a three-story Tudor in the heart of Toronto right now, with the city in the throes of an overheated real estate market.

My parents bought the house in 1960 and started filling it with furniture, art, books, LPs, photos, china, silver, crystal, keepsakes and, yes, black rotary phones as heavy as anvils. Memories attached to all of it. And all of it had to go somewhere.

This was on me, their only child. So in March, I gave myself a week. No wife. No kids. No boozing with high-school buddies. I was racing the clock from the minute I landed.