Your first example works for me. I'd recommend not putting the single quotes around hash key names like 'pNum' since the squiggly braces are nore than enough for perl.

Did you cut'n'paste this code or retype it for us? The second line only fixes one of the two calls to the same variable yet you present that as a working line?

Can you get us more complete code? something isn't right here.

--
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)