-e doesn't need you to open and read the contents of the file. It's purpose is to test for the existence of a file, like this:

if (-e $checkme) {
   print "woo hoo\n";
}
[download]

And what about the script that checks check_if_its_running.pl is still running?

Here's a meta solution ;-)

for (my $i = 2 to MAX_INTEGER) {
   if (-e "$checkme.$i") {
      print "woo hoo\n";
   } else {
      start_it($i);
   }
}
[download]