Performance problems?

I've been optimizing scripts in an attempt to speed my friend's site up, and I believe I've found the source of the performance problems. When I comment the following page load time changes from around 6 seconds to less than .5 of a second. if($loggedin){

       $events = mysql_query("select * from events where whofor='{$userinfo['id']}' order by id desc limit 1");
       if(mysql_num_rows($events) == 1){
           $events = mysql_fetch_array($events);
           print <<< END
           <p align="center"><a href="{$basepath}doevent.php?id={$events['id']}">{$events['message']}</a></p>
           END;
       }

} This code checks for events (new mail, etc.) that the user may have and dispays them. Any idea on what makes it perform this badly? -- The above message is encrypted with double rot13 encoding. Any unauthorized attempt to decrypt it will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.