@buherator seems more like loose typing is the real villain.
@buherator i remember when i was 1st confronted with a bug like this, very high wtf levels. i feel your pain.
Don't feel bad; it happens to every Python programmer occasionally. It's a known wart in the language, and the developers have said they wouldn't allow a bare comma if they were creating Python today, but it can't be changed now without breaking backwards compatibility.