Postgres inherited table, some questions...

Hello,

I am playing with the "INHERITS" functionality of create table to
determine its suitability to my needs and I've hit a roadblock (hopefully
minor)...

If I have two tables like this:

CREATE TABLE tablea (
id SERIAL
);

CREATE TABLE tableb () INHERITS (tablea);

#1. Now first of all, I notice that if I insert something into tableb, it
appears in tablea and if I insert something in tablea, it does not appear
in tableb... Is this correct and will the use of the "SERIAL" type
cause any confusion or can I insert rows in each table without being
concerned about any internal ramifications of this?

#2. If I do "explain select id from tablea where id=4", I get something
like this:

QUERY PLAN
-------------------------------------------------------
Seq Scan on jobdata (cost=0.00..1.04 rows=1 width=4)
Filter: (id = 4)

...If, however, I do "explain select id from tableb where id=4":

-------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
Result (cost=0.00..2.08 rows=2 width=4)
-> Append (cost=0.00..2.08 rows=2 width=4)
-> Seq Scan on jobdata_revisions (cost=0.00..1.04 rows=1 width=4)
Filter: (id = 4)
-> Seq Scan on jobdata jobdata_revisions (cost=0.00..1.04
rows=1 width=4)
Filter: (id = 4)

I'm a bit mystified by the results of tableb, I don't understand what the
"Append" and the second "Seq Scan" is for... More importantly, I'm not
sure how to optimize this properly...

Any ideas what I can do here?...

Thanks!

- Greg