New Yorkers lose so many AirPods, the subway may have to do a PSA

Because Apple rudely removed the headphone jack from all its iPhones, podcast-loving commuters have been increasingly using AirPods to keep up with episodes of Secrets of the Most Productive People on their way to the office. The problem with AirPods, though, is that they are very small, very expensive, and very easy to drop on subway tracks, apparently.

Now, New York’s MTA, the organization in charge of the subways, is considering issuing a public service announcement to ask subway riders to pretty, pretty please not remove AirPods while getting on or off the subway, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s because people keep dropping them on tracks as they get on and off the train. Once the AirPod has fallen and can’t get up, grieving AirPod owners have no choice but to go find someone to use a “picker-upper thing” (apparently the technical term) to rescue the errant AirPod before it gets swiped by the subway’s resident rat population. For their part, maintenance workers don’t seem to mind the rescue operations, because it ensures they are busy. “It’s job security, as far as we’re concerned,” an MTA maintenance boss told the Journal.

While AirPod slippage is worse in the summer because of excess hand and ear sweat, according to WSJ, the MTA has had enough of the train delays and worker hours spent saving flying AirPods. Now it may issue a warning to AirPod users. Consider yourself warned, AirPod users.