Unfiltered Story #325738

I’m visiting my parents in a little town in Germany for the weekend (I live in the Netherlands myself). My mum invites me along to go downtown to see a new fountain that has been in the local news rather often recently, because apparently, people keep falling into it. When we find the thing, we’re both puzzled. It’s a pretty obvious fountain. Yes, it’s low, but still, people can’t really be so oblivious as to miss the entire thing, right?
We walk down the street, trying to puzzle out between us how it’s possible that several people have fallen into a clearly visible fountain. Along the way, we pass the local photographer’s shop, and my mum is reminded that she needs to have a new picture taken for her health-insurance card.
We go in, mum gets her picture taken, and I browse picture-frames a bit. When mum is getting her pictures printed and pays for them, another customer wanders into the shop. Remember, we are in a photography shop, advertised as such on the store-front. The photo-studio is visible through an open door. In the shop-window is the latest special offer for having passport-photos taken. Around the shop are several signs stating what kind of pictures this photographer takes, price-lists for different picture subjects and sizes, and slogans like: “Your photographs done in seconds!”.
Still, this customer, a young man who doesn’t look like he has any visual impairment, walks up to the till, stands next to my mum who is just being handed her pictures and chatting with the photographer about getting them taken, at least three signs about having pictures taken immediately in his line of sight, and asks the other shop-employee this gem of a question:
Customer: “Can I get my picture taken here?”
I now get why people keep falling into that fountain.