Storing a list of data of indefinite length

I'm having trouble figuring out which Max object to use to store data. Basically, I'm making something where Max needs to look at a big list of data, find an entry that corresponds to the current transport time, and then execute functions according to the things that are at that time entry. I was using coll, but since I can't separate data in a coll (you can only use spaces to separate messages from what I gather), it creates an awkward situation for a route object to read. For example, say at measure 1, I want to set the color of something to blue. Easy enough to store that data with a coll. But then say at measure 10, I want to change the color to blue and then the color of something else to yellow, etc. Then a coll doesn't really manage stuff. Ideally, I could have a storage mechanism that can store key value pairs, and then I can just iterate through and execute all the functions attached to each key value pair. What is the best object for this kind of procedure?