How do I get rid of the Smilies I never wanted in posts I make...?

Add a space between them. If they’re next to each other it’ll read the emoticon. You can also preview post to see if any were created.

Thanks for the hint. It explains some things. ; (

Now I know why I get a smiley face when I type a close parenthesis, sometimes.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/emoticons/

The first dozen or so emoticons on that list can be generated unintentionally by various character combinations in your message text. Preview your post to check for emoticons and then edit to remove. I suggest using empty html tags to prevent a character combination from creating that image. For example:

:P  =  

:[b][/b]P  =  :P

That preserves the text spacing and it only takes a couple clicks on the 'bold text' formatting button.

Such useful, handy information!