I’m having a little trouble growing old gracefully.

I am feeling old enough with a failing memory, failing eyes, failing estrogen, failing collagen and failing stomach muscles, but I had an interesting experience at 2 a.m. last weekend that very truly stripped an extra 10 years off my lifespan. I apply the adjective “interesting” in the painful lesson category rather than the “Gee, that’s fascinating” category.

I am pretty certain that outside of the boxing ring, nothing slams your brain against your skull quite like the phone catapulting you out of a dead sleep in the middle of the night. It’s just never good news, unless you are waiting to hear of the birth of a grandchild. I have no grandchildren.

I flew out of bed, stumbled to the phone, trying to get blood to my brain and my heart out of my throat. The recording said I had a collect call from my daughter’s best friend. It didn’t formally ask if I would accept the charges, so my vibrating, but fuzzy mind just started my mouth talking. “Hi sweetie. What’s going on? Where are you?” This is not what the collect call robot needs to hear. They need to hear a clear, precise “I accept the call.” I didn’t get to that part soon enough, and the call was cut off.

It was among the most distressing moments of my life. I was raised a worrier. I cannot presume it wasn’t anything important. When I know my daughter, her boyfriend and the best friend all went to the same party and I get a 2 a.m. dropped call from the friend, my first thoughts are very, very bad. I can draw the most dark and dreadful conclusions available to the depths of the worried mother’s mind.

Fully awake and horrified now, I tried to figure out what to do. Surely she’ll call back, I thought. Surely she’ll realize it was a mistake. I waited about 60 seconds, then grabbed my cell phone, to keep the house line open. No one answered either my daughter’s cell phone or the friend’s. My thoughts grew even darker. Then I remembered caller ID. There’s a number. Eureka! I can call her back, I thought. I was so, so wrong.

Did you know that you can no longer call a pay phone? I sure as heck didn’t. Yep, that wonderful phone company sure fixed our thoughtless, cell-phone carrying wagons. I think it is very, very important that parents realize that if your child only has one quarter and the call is bungled, there is nothing you can do.

It doesn’t matter if they are stranded God-knows-where or in trouble or danger and their cell phone (if they have one) has died or been locked in the car. I even asked the police to help me connect to that pay phone. They said they could not. By this time, I was truly walking up walls.

In the end, it was just one of those inconsequential incidents where the friend needed a ride home, got impatient waiting and called me just before her mother pulled up, but it took another hour for me to find that out. It was a very long hour. I aged.

If your teenager doesn’t have a cell phone, I think you might want to reconsider. Even if they do, make sure they have at least two quarters and the good sense to call back.