thanks to all who contributed! It took me a while for me to realize but the actual error has nothing to do with the code itself, but rather which file the auto-grader was checking. In other words, my file name had a typo in it so the terminal command I was using (check50 cs50/problems/2022/python/outdated) was checking the wrong file over and over again. Appreciate all the responses, guess moral of the story is be careful with your file names LOL