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Only the necessities

Just about anything that isn't necessary isn't getting bought.

In Jacksonville, barber David Melvin, 31, says folks are letting their hair grow longer.

"It's a choice between getting their hair cut or getting gas," Melvin says. He plans to vote for Obama. "It's about survival. Everyone's in survival mode."

His wife, Misty, 30, a Clinton fan, used to drive all over as a home nursing aide. But she gets paid a flat rate of $9 an hour -- and nothing for gas -- so now she won't leave Jacksonville because it costs too much. She wonders about those ailing residents alone in their middle-of-nowhere homes.

"What's going to happen to those people?" she asks.

Fewer cars cruise into Dewayne Silance's garage in Jacksonville for routine maintenance these days. Folks only bring the cars in when something is broken. Silance, 41, is a Democrat but thinks McCain is the best of the three candidates; he might wait until November to vote.

"I feel like the government's wronging us," Silance says. "I don't see how the average working man is even going to make a living."

The issue crosses party lines, says Al Klemm, chairman of the Down East Republican Club in Beaufort County. "As far as issues go, it's the economy. It's the oil prices."

Bartering pays a bill

Back at the garden shop in Swansboro, fertilizer has doubled from a year ago. Folks don't buy the extra flowers the way they used to, Lane said. Living with her daughter and granddaughter, with her mortgage payment increased four times in the past year, Lane can't afford to buy extras herself.

She listens as Adams describes how she has agreed to paint ceilings for a relative in exchange for getting her phone bill paid for five months.

"People are going to start bartering again," Adams says. "I cry anytime I have to fill up my car. I cringe."

Lane predicts a spike in crime. People will go back to locking their gas caps, she says.

"It's stressful," she says. Lane can't decide whom to vote for. An unaffiliated voter, she can't even decide whether to vote in the Democratic or Republican primary.

And Adams isn't sure she wants to.

"I think this is one year," she says, "that I'm not voting."

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