I don’t know who coined the phrase “Money can’t buy happiness,” but I’m not buying it. Let me prove them wrong. Give me the money.

How much would I need, though? I read a story once about two women playing a game on their lunch hour where they walked downtown and pretended they had a million dollars and could buy anything in the shop windows — dresses, shoes, knickknacks. One day they saw a pearl necklace that they both loved, so they broke their own rules for the first time and actually went inside and asked how much it cost.

“Two hundred thousand dollars,” the clerk said.

Well, just like that, the game was ruined. Two hundred thousand dollars! Almost a quarter of a million on one item. They walked out of the store and down the street, all dejected, till one of them said, “Pretend you have ten million dollars …” The moral of the story is obvious: think big. And no, a cool million is not big enough. But ten million, that might not cut it, either. Probably a hundred million would be better. Or why not a billion?

A billion dollars would be nice, I think, because no one can really count it anyhow, so when you tell your accountants you want to buy a cozy little castle in the Alps and fly your 500 closest friends there for a party, why, they’ll just start writing out checks. A couple million here, a couple there. It won’t matter because you’ll still be so far from the billion dollar cap that no one will care.

Rich people swear that money can’t make you happy, and maybe they’re right. Maybe it’s like being able to stay up all night, or learning to drive, or spending enough on your grocery store club card to earn the 10 percent discount on your next purchase. You work so hard to get there, and then once you do, you realize it’s not the big deal you thought it would be, and maybe that’s what it’s like to be rich. Maybe once you get there it’s not so great after all.

But I doubt it.

I suppose it’s possible to be a sad rich person, but I think I’d handle it better. I think I’d be a happy rich person, lounging in my pool while the servants vacuumed and cleaned the closets. And every time I felt happy I would take a good sip of my cool, fruity drink and solemnly remind myself, “It’s not the money.” Yep, given the chance, I think I could be the happiest little rich person anyone ever saw. Just give me the money. But you’d have to make it worth my while. I really don’t see how I could do it for under a billion.

n Cindy O. Herman lives in Snyder County. Send e-mail comments to her at Cindyherman1@yahoo.com.