That specific key should never be set. My program is correctly puking because it exists. For the life of me, though, I can't find where that key is springing into existence.
Perhaps set
$SIG{__DIE__} = \&Carp::confess;
and then sprinkle
die if $hash{badkey};
throughout your code. It won't find it exactly, but you can narrow
it down.
-- Andy Lester => andy@petdance.com => www.petdance.com => AIM:petdance