So, anyway, I got it to work by making the tied %session lexically scoped in the autohandler and then passing a reference down to all other components. But I'm still curious how they got it to work with the global -- teh book specifically discusses a global, localized in the autohandler but available elsewhere as a global. If nothing else, that section of the book may need a little flushing out in the next edition. Thanks for the offers of help.