Our cock-ups will bind us together

We’re in the bus, heading north to the conference in the bush. It’s 7am and we’re deep in the traffic. The N1 South is chockers, rammed bumper to bumper. Turning around and heading back would be impossible. That would make us an hour late. We couldn’t do that.
The conference has gotta start at 10am.
Nick gets a call from the boss.
“Ja. Ja. No, I’ve got all of it. Ja, It’s here in the back…”
As he says that, the colour drains from his face, like he’s just realised something awful. He stands up and dives into the luggage section, digging frantically among the bags. But while he’s doing that, his voice doesn’t falter… “Ja no, we’ll be there about half past nine,” he says. “We in Midrand at the moment.
He hangs up in a rabid panic. “Dude,” he asks G, “did you pack that box?”
“What box?”
“The one what was in the car. The one with the digital picture frames. Did you put it in the bus? Did you maybe put it in the other bus?”
“No! Why must I pack your stuff!”
“I was upstairs getting the pull-up banners! I said, “can you just put my stuff in the van…”
“No you didn’t! You just got out the car and went upstairs.”
Hear that? That’s the sound of Nick’s career going down the tubes.
All the while, we are inexorably moving north. We’re less than an hour away from the conference venue, and NIck has forgotten the picture frames. They were going to be the special gift for the guest speakers!
By this stage NIck is sobbing on G’s shoulder. “No! I’m dead!”
Ah, the career-threatening cock-up. Pure terror when it happens to you. Utter comedy when it happens to someone else.
“We’ve gotta turn back!”
“We can’t turn back. It’ll make all of us late, and delay the conference. It’ll turn a small cock-up into a massive cock-up”
“Urgh-hu-huuuuh”
“Bru, stop crying.”
When does the first of the guests leave? When’s the latest we can hand over the picture frames?
“Probably when John goes back tomorrow morning…”
And he hasn’t left Joburg yet! Let’s phone him, and ask him to pick up the picture frames before he leaves town!”
Genius! We’re going to have to tell the boss, though…
And so it comes to pass that the guest speaker gets to drive around Jo’burg to pick up his own gift of thanks. The oke earns his special picture frame. And his presentation isn’t bad either.
Before that, Nick phones Donna. “Guy, we’ve left the picture frames in Joburg. We gonna have to get John to bring them this afternoon. Ja… Ja… So we’ve made a plan. Can you just tell the boss so long?”
We have done terrible things. We must sort them out.
We.
We stand or fall as a team.
The spanbou has begun, and we haven’t even got to the game lodge yet. Our cock-ups bind us together.