hello is there anyway to hide drop down menus? reason being is because i want users to be able to just click a "guides" link and be taken to the category list without having to go through drop down menus

Simply disable that K2 Tools module and either publish a menu module or use the category list functionality of the K2 Tools module.

If I disable the k2 tools will my categories come out like site.com/itemlist/category/02 rather than site.com/guides/02

This is irrelevant to the module.
The urls are dependant to your menu structure.

Yeah that's what I mean,if I hide the menu structure then my irks come out like site.com/itemlist/category/02 which I dont want,only way it works if I have them in the drop down menu which I want to hide because I just want them to go to one central place..sorry New to joomla so trying to get the hang of it..so is this more of an joomla issue?

If the select box is a Joomla! menu then you should look for other templates for that module. A plain list should be present.

When you say hiding your menu, you should not unpublish your menu, just the module.