def suffixtonumber(suffix):
    """ Given a set of ascii_lowercase values, get a base 26 number.
    a = 0, ... z = 25, aa = 26, ...
    """

    # int(base=26) doesn't quite work, since first ten ints are actually ints!
    base36 = '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
    return int(''.join([base36[base36.index(b)-10] for b in suffix]), 26)