How to get a soak out of your new-fangled top-loader

Only a housewife understands that title!

Back in the day before every appliance was improved into frustrating, beeping, flashing uncooperativeness, a washing machine was a sturdy workhorse with a soak cycle.

If you have a Whirlpool-esque top-loader like mine, chosen for its approximation (but not achievement) of analogue reasonableness, you will have noticed that there is no soak cycle and no combination of actions — pausing, stopping, opening the lid, chanting, pleading — that will make it just stop for a while so your clothes can become clean.

All attempts lead, enragingly, to the washer draining itself after about 10 minutes. (I won’t even address front-loaders — you’re on your own.)

But I figured it out.

Unplug it.

Start your cycle as usual, with at least warm water and whatever detergent you use, and let the clothing agitate for 7-10 minutes (set a timer, for real).

Pause the cycle (press the Start/Pause button once).

Unplug the machine.

Set your timer for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour, up to several hours (but if you are using bleach, not more than an hour, because bleach is heavier than water and will settle, with possible consequences to whatever is at the bottom of your load).

Plug the washer in. Wait for a minute while the goblin within makes up its mind about what is happening; it will soon begin to blink its “paused” blink.

Press Start.

Your clothes will be a lot cleaner than otherwise!

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