In all honesty my brain is rather fried after getting this far today.
I am trying to save the state of multiple select drop downs on page using this plugin:
http://plugins.jquery.com/project/cookies
I am using this jQuery to set cookies for the different title drop downs based on their ID:
$(document).ready(function() {
// hide 'Other' inputs to start
$('.jOther').hide();
// event listener on all select drop downs with class of jTitle 
$(".jTitle").change(function(){
    //set the select value
    var val = $(this).val();
    if(val != "Other") {
        //$(this).nextAll('.jOther').hide();
        $(this).parent().find(".jOther").hide();
    } else {
        //$(this).nextAll('.jOther').show();
        $(this).parent().find(".jOther").show();
    }
    // Sets a cookie with named after the title field's ID attribute 
    $(this).cookify();
});
$(".jTitle").each(function(){
    // get the id of each Title select drop down
    var $titleId = $(this).attr('id');
    // get the value of the cookie for each cookie created above in $(this).cookify()
    var $cookieValue = $.cookies.get($titleId);
    // if value is 'Other' make sure it is shown on page refresh
    if ($cookieValue == 'Other') {
        // Show the other input
        $(this).parent().find(".jOther").show();
        // set select value to 'Other'
        $(this).val('Other');
    } else {
        // set to whatever is in the cookie
        $(this).val($cookieValue);
    }                       
}); 
});
What is happening is that when no cookies are set the select drop down is displaying a blank option when i want it to default to 'Please select'.
Sample HTML that i am using:
<td>
<select id="titleDepend1" class="inlineSpace jTitle">
    <option value="Please select">Please select...</option>
    <option value="Mr">Mr</option>
    <option value="Mrs">Mrs</option>
    <option value="Ms">Ms</option>
    <option value="Miss">Miss</option>
    <option value="Dr">Dr</option>
    <option value="Other">Other</option>
</select>
<label for="otherDepend1" class="inlineSpace jOther">Other</label>
<input type="text" class="text jOther" name="otherDepend1" id="otherDepend1" maxlength="6" />
So if it is the first time the user is on page and they have not clicked any drop downs the first value will be null rather than 'Please select'.
 
    