How do I get rid of the tables of contents at the top of the article?

You can hide it temporarily on the current page by clicking on the hide link next to it. To prevent tables of content appearing at all on any page, you have to register and log in. When you've done that, you'll have a My Preferences link near the top of the page. Click on this and you'll get to a page with a number of tabs - User Profile, Skin, etc. Click on the Misc tab and deselect the option 'Show table of contents (for pages with more than 3 headings)'. While you're there, why not look through all the other preferences on the other tabs and try a few out.