[Zope] curious list problem

Hello all, In python I would normally do the following to make a associative array (with an element that is a list) empty: thing['items'] = [] This seems like such a minor thing to do, but I can't seem to get this to work with DTML. How would I do the equivalent in DTML??? I've tried using REQUEST.set() and also just a straight dtml-call expression, and neither seemed to work. I'd appreciate some help or guidance. ~Mark