This guy saved his lost AirPod using a makeshift magnetic 'fishing pole' (AAPL)

Anyone who has worn Apple's futuristic wireless earbuds, AirPods, gets the same question: What happens when one falls out and you can't retrieve it?

That's exactly what happened to Paul Canetti, founder and CEO of MAZ, a company that builds apps for media companies like Forbes and USA Today.

He was rocking one of his AirPods on Monday, listening to a New York Times podcast, when — whoops! — one fell down a grate in New York City.

Not content with a single-AirPod setup, and wanting to avoid spending $69 for a replacement, he jury-rigged a magnetic retrieval device, and got his single earbud back.

Here's how he did it:

Here's the grate that Canetti's lonely 'pod flew into:

"I was already thinking about how much it costs for a new pair, all the naysayers who I had assured this would NEVER happen, my wife who had surprised me over the holidays with this long sought-after gift," Canetti told Business Insider.

Not great.

So Canetti walked to a nearby Ace Hardware and tried to figure out how to get his AirPod back. "It was about 6 feet under the sidewalk from what I could tell. Luckily there was a bottom instead of some subway tunnel or something, so I was thinking about some sort of hook on a string? Or like a mini-noose with a thin rope?" he said. Here's what he settled on:

After testing to make sure the magnet could be applied to his other AirPod, Paul tied the rope around the "super magnet" pole and went AirPod fishing. "After a couple of tries, I was able to get it in the perfect spot and I heard the satisfying click of the AirPod sticking to the magnet. Then I carefully pulled it up, but it got stuck to the grate again on the way up! I was afraid of it falling back in, but I carefully guided it out," Canetti said.

"There's probably literally a magnet in [the AirPods case] which is how it gets sucked into the case with that same clicking noise!" Canetti explains.

Success!

"Some middle schoolers walked by just as I got it and I was so pumped and I like yelled out to them that I had just pulled this out with a magnet, and as they passed they looked back and yelled, 'Science!'"

Paul Canetti is on Twitter.

You can follow him at @paulcanetti.