CLEARWATER, FL (AP)—Ac-cording to a published report, this coming Saturday, which was expected to look good, now looks terrible for area resident Walter Russell.
A marketing executive with the firm of LaMont, Holland & Dozier, the 38-year-old Russell was expected to be free some of the day, but will in reality be extremely busy from early morning until late evening, his time occupied with important business-related matters.
“Saturday’s terrible for me,” Russell said to friend Jack Shores when asked if he was interested in playing golf that afternoon. “I’ve still got to figure out the preliminary numbers on the Jenn-Air account before the proposal Monday, and I haven’t even seen the darn strategy report.”
Shores, a fellow marketing executive, expressed disappointment over Russell’s unavailability for golfing.
“I was really looking forward to playing a round with Walter,” Shores said. “He’s the only one in the office I can actually beat.”
Shores then chuckled and made several more humorous remarks about his friend’s questionable golf skills.
Also disappointed with Russell’s busy Saturday schedule is mistress Diane Kane, 31, with whom the married Russell has been having an affair for nearly four years.
“We were supposed to go out to dinner, and then take a late-night cruise,” Kane said. “I was even going to call him by his pet name, ‘Waltie,’ which drives him crazy.”
“I’m sorry baby,” Russell told Kane late last night via phone. “I’m just slammed tomorrow. I promise I’ll make it up to you soon.” Russell then added he would “really make it up to her,” if she knew what he meant.
This Saturday will mark the third terrible one this month for Russell, who last weekend had to pass on lunch with his wife to finish outlining final budget initiatives for the Mopar Auto Parts account.
Experts are not surprised Russell is so busy Saturday. “Unlike your average auto mechanic or schoolteacher, important marketing executives often must sacrifice weekends,” Professor James J. Dilweg of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business said. “Clearly, Walter Russell understands that to stay on top in a competitive, ever-changing business environment, one must give 110 percent. It is such passion for perfection that defines a winner.”
There is an outside shot Saturday will be okay, if Russell can get a solid enough draft of the report done by mid-afternoon. If that happens, he will try to catch the second half of his son’s youth league basketball game before stopping at a client’s early evening cocktail party.
He also has been putting off a tune-up for his 1993 Lexus, which at 30,000 miles is starting to give him the type of problems he thought he could avoid by purchasing a $44,000 car.
