"Nice to meet you." Emet sounded normal enough to her ear, the second half of his name less so... but he might well be expecting something after a hyphen for her own name and be surprised there wasn't anything.

She sighed, setting her elbow on a nearby bar to set her chin in her hand, aware how silly the story was going to sound. "Yes, they do go by moon phase. There was a fishing contest in town... and when all the bounty was packed into the refrigerators, they all failed from the overload. Anything that was in them spoiled, which was the vast majority of everyone's food."

So, a self-inflicted and very serious problem.