You asked for a perlish way, so here is it. (Or at least this is my idea of perlish.) (A lispish way would be a tail-recursive function.)

use Data::Dumper; 
@arr= 1..18; 

(@{$aoa[@aoa]}[0..2], @arr) = @arr while @arr; 
$aoa= [@aoa]; 

print Dumper $aoa;
[download]

Update: hihi, I've just seen the sign under the post:

bottled water