A man had been sick in bed for a week due to a nasty bout of the flu. His voice was raspy, his breathing ragged, and he looked like a man on his deathbed.

One day, while his daughters and wife accompanied him, he uttered a crackled sentence: "I need anointment."

His companions were visibly distressed, and his wife began to weep. "Oh, father," one child said, "Don't leave us, please!"

"I...need...anointment..." was his response.

"Okay, it's only as a precaution!" his wife said, holding back her tears. "I'll...I'll call the priest."

The man was becoming more impatient, perhaps delirious at the edge of death. "I...need anointment!" he said, much more loudly.

"Father, we're calling the priest now, but don't worry, you won't be passing to--"

With every ounce of strength that he could muster, the man sat up, fury and loathing and regret and pain in his eyes, as though he was seeing all the things that he had never done, all the things he could never again say. In a fierce bellow that resonated across the room, he said:

"I SAID I NEED AN OINTMENT! You damn kids haven't changed my sheet in a week, and there's a terrible itch down there!"