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Last weekend I visited South Beach, Fla., with two of my closest friends to celebrate my upcoming 30th birthday, and something so shocking happened that I still have trouble talking about it.

I would imagine some pretty shocking things could happen in South Beach. But this one moment I’ll take with me for the rest of my life.

I arrived in SOBE last Saturday afternoon with my two friends, Kerri and Emily. Kerri and I are friends from UNC-Chapel Hill. We were suitemates freshman year and have been close ever since. Emily and I grew up across the street from each other in Huntington, W.Va. BFFE’s we like to call each other (best friends for ever). She moved away the summer before 4th grade, so we kept in touch over the years via letters, phone calls, e-mail, instant messaging, Facebook, text, etc.

After spending a few hours Saturday afternoon and evening checking out what SOBE had to offer in entertainment and food options, we ventured back to our hotel room to rest up before heading out again to take on the nightlife. I turned on the TV, figuring we could catch a Patrick Swayze movie marathon while getting ready. He had just passed away five days earlier. Sure enough, we caught the end of “Ghost.”

While we were watching this, Emily said that she’d never seen the movie before. Kerri and I both commented that it wasn’t our most-favorite Patrick Swayze movie, so she wasn’t missing all that much.

When the movie ended and we were all depressed watching Swayze’s character walk into the bright light, I asked Kerri to find us “Dirty Dancing” to cheer us up, and sure enough, it was on ABC Family, about halfway through.

We chatted about what we were going to wear out that night and I flipped through a Miami visitors’ guide while Johnny and Baby did their mambo at the Sheldrake. Everything was right in the world. For a moment.

Emily: “Andrea, what would you say if I told you I’ve never seen this movie before, either?”

I think I stopped breathing. My blood pressure shot through the roof. I jumped off the bed and had to remove the sweater I was wearing over my T-shirt.

“WHAT?????” I yelled at the woman I have called my best friend for my entire life.

She started laughing hysterically at my reaction. But she was dead serious. She had never seen the movie that is my all-time favorite. I was fanning myself with my Miami vistors’ guide. My nerves were shot. I pulled out my phone. I wanted to call someone who would be as appalled at this information as I was, but I didn’t know who to call. My mind was racing.

In all seriousness, I declared that the chatting would stop and we were watching this movie and we would not be going out that night. South Beach could live without us for one night, but Emily could not live one more night without “Dirty Dancing.”

We tried to piece together how she could have lived almost 30 years without seeing “Dirty Dancing.” She remembers a slumber party in 3rd grade, when the movie had just been released, and the girls were watching the movie. She said she knew her parents wouldn’t of approved of her watching it, so she excused herself. And it’s just never come up again in her life.

I remember that my parents wouldn’t let me watch it until I was about 13. I rented it for a slumber party, and I must have watched it a million times that weekend before the video was due back at the store.

Through the years, I’ve learned various choreography from the movie. In 2007, Kerri and I saw “Dirty Dancing” on the big screen in Raleigh when it was shown in select theaters for the 20th anniversary. Just this summer, my family took a vacation to Lake Lure and took a boat tour of the lake to see where certain scenes from the movie were filmed.

I’m glad I was the one to introduce Emily to Patrick Swayze and “Dirty Dancing.” But she still hasn’t seen it all the way through.

I think I know what I’ll be getting her for her 30th birthday.

Andrea Martin is a page designer at the News & Record. Contact her at 373-7018 or andrea.martin@news-record.com.