Retain state of drop down menus

Hi,
I have a group of chained drop down menus using collection select and jQuery.  I would like to be able to retain their previously selected state between sessions.   My question is:  Is there a standard way to do this? 

I am currently writing the saved values of each button from a cookie to a hidden text field on the page when it is visited  I am now trying to set jQuery up to read those values and return the menus to there previous state.