Post office (game)

Post office, also called postman's knock, is a kissing party game traditionally played at teenage gatherings. One player takes on the role of a postal messenger who calls another player, usually of the opposite sex, out of the room to deliver a letter, which in practice means a kiss exchanged in private before both players rejoin the group and the role passes along. References to the game in United States popular culture reach back to at least the 1880s, including a mention connected to a 2014 annotated edition of Laura Ingalls Wilder's autobiography, showing the game has circulated among American teenagers for well over a century. Regional and international variants carry their own names, including pony express and the Swedish ryska posten, or Russian post, indicating the format spread and was locally adapted across different party cultures. The game sits alongside other structured teenage kissing games such as seven minutes in heaven, sharing the same basic function of giving a group a socially sanctioned excuse for brief private pairing off, but it is a distinct game with its own postal-messenger framing.