Obviously there's something funky going on with my particular machine.
Luckily using Tie::Array::Packed is not mission critical - although it looks like a sweet technique when running through humongous arrays. But it's a little scary to realize that a script that runs for five hours before completing its task, or an array with 20,000+ items in it, are not abnormal.
This is coming from a person who actually remembers doing single 4 page print runs that took so long that I could walk to Starbucks for coffee and be back before it finished.
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