This is a little baffling to me. I can get the selected value ("val"
attribute) on an option element, but only by using the following
method:

var selectedId = $("#mySelectElement :selected").val();

This is great, but all the examples I have read simply do the
following:

var selectedId = $("#mySelectElement").val();

Supposedly this returns the value stored in the "val" attribute, but
every time I try it it returns the text instead. Am I doing something
wrong?

Thanks for your help!

Matt