diff --git a/check_puppet_agent b/check_puppet_agent
index 1ebcc84..64a45b3 100755
--- a/check_puppet_agent
+++ b/check_puppet_agent
@@ -84,8 +84,6 @@
 # 20170426  benwtr      Detect failure to retrieve catalog from server as a warning.
 # 20180324  deric       Discard puppet config error (logging) output
 
-declare -A puppet_config_list
-
 # FUNCTIONS
 result () {
   case $1 in
@@ -204,7 +202,11 @@ while getopts "c:d:l:s:r:w:v:PEh" opt; do
 done
 
 parse_puppet_config () {
-  [ ${puppet_config_list[$1]+abc} ] && echo ${puppet_config_list[$1]} || echo ""
+  echo "$puppet_config_output" | while read key value; do
+    if [ "$key" = "$1" ]; then
+        echo "${value#= }"
+    fi
+  done
 }
 
 [ -z "$HOME" ] && export HOME=$(getent passwd `whoami` | cut -d: -f6)  # Some clean environment situations make puppet -V fail.
@@ -234,14 +236,7 @@ case $puppet_major_version in
     ;;
 esac
 
-# Construct the associative array puppet config list
-while read key value
-do
-  puppet_config_list[$key]=${value#= }
-done <<_EOT_
-`$puppet_config_print 2> /dev/null`
-_EOT_
-
+puppet_config_output="$($puppet_config_print 2> /dev/null)"
 # construct WARN and CRIT times based on runinterval plus a safety buffer
 # if they have not already been explicitly set
 runinterval=$(parse_puppet_config "runinterval")