On Wed, Dec 21, 2005 at 11:52:56AM -0800, Mark wrote: > SELECT id > FROM mq > WHERE now - start_date > time_to_live; The problem is you can't use an index on this, because you'd need to index on (now() - start_date), which obviously wouldn't work. Instead, re-write the WHERE as: WHERE start_date < now() - time_to_live -- Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117 vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461