Where do you get your ideas?

A question that authors invaribly get from readers and interviewers alike is
"Where do you get your ideas?"

Of course, that is a silly question. Where does any of us get any ideas? Where did Edison get his idea for the light bulb? Where did Barbara Bradford get her ideas for the romance she wrote about? Where did your son/daughter/niece/nephew get the idea to color a garden on the kitchen wall?

The answer, "From our imaginations, of course."

The better question might be: "What inspired your imagination to put the ideas together in the pattern and in the series of events as you did to create the novel you wrote/the invention you created/the art work you manifested?"

Of course, but the time you get done saying the question, it is so long and lengthy, the person being interviewed has yawned, gone for coffee, and forgotten who she was talking to. And the questioneer has forgotten the purpose of the question.

So, perhaps, we should just stick with the tried and true.

Madam Author? Where did you get your idea?