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If the waitress did not know English and you do not know Spanish then any kind of mis-understanding can happen. Hard to conclude that she is dumb, dim witted etc.
If you are going to settle in CR it may be worth your while to make your self understood by the locals by learning Spanish.
Just a thought .

Excellent recommendation and I am working on it. I already speak slow broken Spanish but my comprehension and speaking ability are minimal, in any event, I'm learning and studying.

I consider myself an expert on detecting dimwitted people, but you make a good point.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh, many people from 3rd world countries and more and more in the USA in failing schools don't learn well, and while still young, haven't developed proper social skills.

They may not be naturally stupid, but their circumstances have failed them and they appear stupid because they don't know how to handle certain situations. Perhaps this was more the case in this interaction and I labeled her as dim, but she just could not comprehend how to handle this type of problem and froze.

But still, when you detect a customer is not happy and trying to explain yourself, and you can't comprehend what he's saying, get some help, don't just repeatedly point to the check and repeatedly say this is what it is...that's poor judgement in any language.

I believe if a Tico or Tica is going to be working in establishments where they will be mostly interacting with N American clients, they should know at least some minimal conversational English. On the other hand, If I eat at a normal Tico soda, the full responsibility is on me.

Anyway, if you read through my diatribe in detail, you will see the problem wasn't based on a Spanish/English misunderstanding, that was only a part of it.

But nuff said, it was basically just an annoying 5 minutes, I share in the blame for not stating upfront how I wanted the check to go down, I resolved it quickly when I saw my requests were going nowhere, and I learned a lesson now to always ask up front.

I think we need some clarification on which staff is eligible for the 10% guaranteed gratuity and which staff gets the additional propina that is optional on the final bill. I think we have some mistaken assumptions. Bill, could you clarify this?

All waiters and waitresses should ask how the customers want the check but they don't, usually the new, untrained, stupid or lazy ones.