The Case of The Missing S'chach (Or, Another Senior Moment for MoC)

This year, for the first time ever, I did not put up my own Succah. (Indeed, for many years, I put up two succahs; ours and my dad's). Instead, through the efforts of some good friends and a bunch of young men from DRS, our Succah was put up while I convalesced in the hospital. The best I could do was give instructions over the phone.

One of the things I told the guys was not to put up the schach. I first wanted to set up the lights, which I felt I needed to do in person (and, since the succah was put up a few weeks early, there was still plenty of time).

So, yesterday, I called one of my neighbors to help me put up the beams, the lights and the s'chach. He readily came over with two of his sons and in no time we had the beams and the lights up.

I went back to the garage to help bring out the s'chach (bamboo mats to be specific).

They were nowhere to be found.

We looked all over. In the garage. Outside. Gurnisht.

I'm thinking, no one is going to steal s'chach. If they were going to steal anything out of my garage it would be my bike (chas v'shalom).

Then I started thinking.

Did I throw out the s'chach when I took the succah down last year?

I absolutely could not remember doing so.

On the other hand, I know that I've been thinking about replacing the 17-year-old mats for at least three years. They were really ratty and frayed.

After thinking hard about what I happened, the vague memories returned. I remember throwing the mats out last year (I can now picture putting the mats on the sidewalk for bulk pick up) with the idea that it would force me to buy new mats this year when I put up the succah. (Otherwise, I thought, I will just do the easy thing and put them back up for yet another year).

How was I to know that it wouldn't be me putting up the succah and that I wouldn't even be around to "discover" the missing mats?

Thankfully, I didn't wait until Friday to attempt to put the "roof" on. Now THAT would have been interesting.