If even SQLite is overkill, how about just using
Storable? I've used this in a couple of places where I just wanted my script to "remember" a single hash between runs and didn't have to worry about concurrency etc. All it really does is save you the trouble of formatting/parsing the file.
use Storable;
store \%table, 'file';
$hashref = retrieve('file');
--
Time flies when you don't know what you're doing