DBD::mysql timeout

Hello,

    I have a script that runs a series of summary queries. On the last query, it is timing out, returning the message: 

DBD::mysql::st execute failed: Lost connection to MySQL server during query at stats_tester.pl line 56. 

    If run from the mysql prompt, the problem query takes about 31 seconds. The column in question is a tinytext and it is indexed with about 2 million rows.

    The script is only being run from the command line at the moment, so it's not a server issue. I am using the default mysql-huge settings that came with the install. Is there a param I can pass to the connect() to make the script wait for longer before quitting? 

    Thanks in advance for any help.

Rob