Please Help!! Cookies, or Session table or both!?!?!?!

My web app - 8i using stored procedures - requires about a handful of variables to be created and referenced during a users session on the site. How can I go about this?

I am currently using a few cookies to set some values, but I imagine this is not the best way to do things?
Shouldn't I insert values into a table based on a the unique session id? If so, how do I delete the record once the session is terminated? Is this idea of putting these values into a table inefficient? I know with asp, I can just create session variables and their values on the session begin, but am unsure of how to do it on 8i.

Thanks for any help offered. It is appreciated!!

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Joe