Ok I did misunderstand about the line, I had run it as a command earlier. My .bashrc seems to have what it needs.

export PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT="$PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT:/home/slugger415/perl
+5";
export PERL_MB_OPT="--install_base /home/slugger415/perl5";
export PERL_MM_OPT="INSTALL_BASE=/home/slugger415/perl5";
export PERL5LIB="/home/slugger415/perl5/lib/perl5:$PERL5LIB";
export PATH="/home/slugger415/perl5/bin:$PATH";
[download]

Running the curl command:

[nyssa]$ curl -L https://cpanmin.us | perl - App::cpanminus
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time
+  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left
+  Speed
100  298k  100  298k    0     0  2305k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:
+-- 2311k
!
! Can't write to /usr/local/share/perl/5.18.2 and /usr/local/bin: Inst
+alling modules to /home/slugger415/perl5
! To turn off this warning, you have to do one of the following:
!   - run me as a root or with --sudo option (to install to /usr/local
+/share/perl/5.18.2 and /usr/local/bin)
!   - Configure local::lib in your existing shell to set PERL_MM_OPT e
+tc.
!   - Install local::lib by running the following commands
!
!         cpanm --local-lib=~/perl5 local::lib && eval $(perl -I ~/per
+l5/lib/perl5/ -Mlocal::lib)
!
App::cpanminus is up to date. (1.7043)
[download]

variable output:

[nyssa]$ echo $PATH
/home/slugger415/.gems/bin:/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/bin/:/usr/local/bin:
+/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games
[download]

HMMM I see echo $PERL5LIB produces nothing, though it's obviously in my .bashrc file, so something's amiss here...

and obviously my $PATH is wrong, no idea where it's getting that stuff... not reading .bashrc apparently. Oh and yes I did log out and back in.