MySQL looks cached.

I admit my newbie status but this is really odd even for me. :} I'm returning an int from MySQL. No matter what that number is it's returning as 3 until I refresh, when it becomes two. And on each refresh after that it toggles between 2-3. I've checked my functions by redeclaring the var right after the db call and everything is working fine. $the_query = "SELECT $something FROM somewhere WHERE RowName='$rowname'"; $the_call = mysql($db, $the_query); echo $the_call; Will rturn 2's and 3's as i stated above. UNLESS i redeclare $the_call before the echo. Any see what I'm doing wrong? Thanks, John