Mysql – apt-get purge mariadb leaving traces which stop thesql install

I'm trying to bug test a database issue with a website I'm working on. I would like to see if switching between mariadb and MySQL fixes the issue (however unlikely that is). I thought this would be a simple processes on a dev machine (I don't have any data to worry about / back up).

I used the command

sudo apt-get purge mariadb*

and then I entered

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

And was surprised to receive this lovely error.

   invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.5 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server:
 mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.5; however:
  Package mysql-server-5.5 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Setting up libmariadbclient18 (5.5.32+maria-1~precise) ...
No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.
                          Processing triggers for libc-bin ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mysql-server-5.5
 mysql-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I tried dkpg –configure -a and was greeted with this

Setting up mysql-server-5.5 (5.5.31-0ubuntu0.12.04.2) ...
start: Job failed to start
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.5 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server:
 mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.5; however:
  Package mysql-server-5.5 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mysql-server-5.5
 mysql-server

I noticed that there wasa line which said

setting up libmariadbclient18

which makes no sense to me since I purged mariadb* earlier. Anyone out there have an idea of what's going on?

Update
I went right to the heart of the issue and did

sudo apt-get install mysql-client-5.5

and was greeted with

Note, selecting 'mariadb-client-5.5' instead of 'mysql-client-5.1'

Not sure what's going on.

update2

sudo apt-get purge libmariadbclient-dev

has me installing the correct client, still getting an error on install.