"Are you the plumber printer?", Maggie, the bar tender, asked.

"Yeah, where are the restrooms?"

"Down the hall, on the left side", Maggie said, "We need four new plungers."

"They told me two plungers. I've gotta go back to the shop and get more resin."

As the printer plumber waddled back to his truck Maggie and I looked at each other and laughed at the vestigial human ethos in a manufactured worker.

"I have to remember that these machines are not real", she said, and touched my arm with the intent of reassurance. Reduced to a life of basic existence in this dystopian society on the banks of the Mississippi we humans latched onto any morsel of feeling or behavior that might remind us of the distant society we had enjoyed prior to the Missouri Printed Gun and Sex Bot Compromise.

A few stools down the counter was the former Republican Senator with his fake baby propped beside him and down at the end were two sex bot printers doing shots and charging themselves on the only electrical outlet in the burned out building and bar we called, the Demise. As an electrical technician I did not cotton much to the printers. They habitually waited until the last minute to call me and then it was usually in the middle of the night.

Next to me stood "Veep", a Vaginal Probe with whom I spent most evenings drinking beer and sizing up the day's events.

"Do you know why religious 3-D printers don't have sex standing up?" Veep asked. "No", I said.

"They're afraid it'll lead to dancing." Veep joked.

Maggie, a former corporate exec, didn't like Veep but out of necessity tolerated a diverse bar clientele. However, she had her limits. One night Veep got out of line and she erupted, "Look, you insufferable jerk, I'm not going to demean myself by ever asking you for an exemption and don't even think about coming near me with that thing."  

In Missouri and the other "Sheriff Law" states, Vaginal Probes had been given special status, like ombudsmen.  Each county Sheriff administered local laws plus what remained of Federal Law and they relied on fees for such things as probing---which was complicated by virtue of religious exemptions. Sheriffs relied on the judgment of Probes to balance the large number of "freedom applications" for probing exemptions with the practical need for revenue to keep the lights on and the patrol cars running.  

"It's ironic", Veep said, "that the religious zealots who demanded that we become part of the Compromise are now the first ones to demand exemptions from probing."

"I wish I could print a gun", the former Senator was blowing, "I'd go over to the court house and force them to give me my doll subsidy. The Sheriff don't know crap about running a government."

When states converted to the Sheriff's Law Option, they---and "State Option" architect Chief Justice Cruz---had not foreseen all the consequences. After a brief boom in industrial production with robots and printers doing the work, there were millions of layoffs. Food became scarce, local economies collapsed, and people turned on one other. Gun printing was rampant. Militias, bands of armed zealots, renegade former corporate executives and lawyers---all unleashed such internecine killing and wanton carnage that local law enforcement was overwhelmed. 

As roving vigilantes terrorized the countryside, jobs became scarce, and starvation persisted, the states which had opted for Sheriff Law held armed conventions in which the conflicting parties reached compromises. The Missouri state's final solution was typical:

Printers and robots each received one half the status of a human. Printed guns were outlawed but in hopes of containing the coercive qualities of male testosterone and maintaining a less violent society, printed sex bots, though heavily taxed, were permitted. Fake babies could garner subsidies for their owners---as the babies generated industrial production but didn't require expenditures on nurseries and schools. Vaginal Probes could not vote but received state salaries because, as the arbiters between personal freedoms and taxes, they were the invisible hand of government.

As Veep and I were knocking back the last of our beers, the 3-D plumber printer ambled back into the bar with additional parts and resin to make the four plungers.

"Hey, you can't vape in here", Maggie yelled.

'Sorry, I'm trying to quit smoking", the printer said.

I paid my tab, patted Veep on his handle and reluctantly walked out onto a street lined with bags full of garbage which had rotted in place for a month. Surveying the bleak neighborhood I fought off feelings of despair and the urge to recall images of my comfortable prior life---before technological efficiencies destroyed the economy and states elected Sheriff's Law. In truth, I was better off than most of the survivors. My part time work was enjoyable and I could afford a few beers every day at the Demise with the bot printers, the Senator, and my friend, Veep.  

As I walked to my shipping container in the next block I thought about all the 3-D printers working the late shift and wondered whether or not I would get a good night's sleep or be called out on some unworldly repair job.