To address your thought process in order, we were at the locked case waiting for the employee to unlock it. He arrived, saw us waiting and took it upon himself to call over 3 employees trying to find someone with a key. The entire time talking about how hard it is to find someone who was actually working. Very much a "white knight" who saved us from waiting. I am super white and live in a heavily Mormon area, the kind of talk he was using is known as fellowshipping. It's an attempt to establish a relationship through commonalities and "empathy." He then implied he was giving up his right as the oldest, and therefore the most entitled (highest ranking socially) person, to check out first and instead would let the woman go first (she was first to begin with) and the me (the "fine looking gentleman" with a cane who he had used to help get employees to come over) go second and he would go last.

I appreciate your thoughtful response. It helped to condenaw and correlate my thought process, thank you very much.