Adding Code Coverage to Utils

[john-science]

Description

Just adding a little code coverage.

In the process, my pylint tripped up on a bunch of unit tests, so I fixed that too.

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Checklist

• This PR has only one purpose or idea. (Well, one idea plus cleanup.)
• Tests have been added/updated to verify that the new/changed code works.

• The code style follows good practices.
• The commit message(s) follow good practices.

• The release notes (location doc/release/0.X.rst) are up-to-date with any bug fixes or new features.
• The documentation is still up-to-date in the doc folder.
• The dependencies are still up-to-date in setup.py.

[opotowsky]

Other than addressing Tony's comment (which was an astute observation!) I think this PR looks good.

[john-science]

@opotowsky @albeanth
Thanks ya'll.

I realize I do too much cleanup in my PRs. At the time, my little pylint lines in this one seemed so minor. But I will try to do better about splitting this PR into two in the future.

Thanks!