Python: string test not evaluating

I'm trying to do what should be simple string comparison, but I can't get it to work:

class Bonk:
  def __init__(self, thing):
    self.thing = thing

  def test(self):
    if self.thing == 'flarn':
      return 'you have flarn'
    return 'you have nothing'

bonk1 = Bonk('glurm')
bonk2 = Bonk('flarn')

bonk1.test()
bonk2.test()

This returns nothing. I've tried this too:

def test(self):
  if self.thing in ['flarn']:
    ...

and that doesn't work either.

I've tried double quotes, assigning 'flarn' to a variable and then testing against the variable, adding a comma at the end of the list test. I tried passing it in as a variable instead... but nothing is working.

What am I missing?