With your proposal, sfrose, we would then be able to interact with our customers in the nursery which would be a good thing since Arthur is stuck behind the register all the time. Also, if the producers don't want to make it a user-defined action, it could be a random action of the villager. Then we would have to watch them and see who is throwing coins in the fountain.

With the same type of premise for the gong events in VV:TLC; after a designated amount of coins in the fountain, the villager is granted their wish (which, you as the player, don't know) it could be a random event like in VV:TLC. The predetermined amount could be 100, 1000, 5000 or whatever and to make it a little more fun, there is nowhere to click and find out the total number of coins deposited in the fountain.