For a while now I've had every 4th-5th page load take upward of 5 seconds on my machine.

Turns out, the problem was a third party WiFi device driver that fell afoul of an upstream change in the kernel, causing it to periodically crash: the extra 5 seconds was simplify the time it took for the kernel to restart the driver.

I'm very happy about how unexpectedly pleasant the internet is to use now.

It's strange how much your brain is willing to ignore when you become used to it.