Sometimes you need to dynamically detect the browser's scroll position. Dealing with browser inconsistencies is a PITA, but here is a javascript function that I use that gets the job done.

function getScrollXY() {
    var x = 0, y = 0;
    if( typeof( window.pageYOffset ) == 'number' ) {
        // Netscape
        x = window.pageXOffset;
        y = window.pageYOffset;
    } else if( document.body && ( document.body.scrollLeft || document.body.scrollTop ) ) {
        // DOM
        x = document.body.scrollLeft;
        y = document.body.scrollTop;
    } else if( document.documentElement && ( document.documentElement.scrollLeft || document.documentElement.scrollTop ) ) {
        // IE6 standards compliant mode
        x = document.documentElement.scrollLeft;
        y = document.documentElement.scrollTop;
    }
    return [x, y];
}

You can then call it like so:

var xy = getScrollXY();
var x = xy[0];
var y = xy[1];