The Cow Parable: A well known story that I can look up after I wake up

my sister is driving
me and another girl
a friend of hers
around Austin
old Austin
but are different
she is taking a short cut
through a parking lot
of a closed business
abandoned
up around 29th street
me and the friend
are laughing
at how crazy she is
to be going this way
around the corner
in the little strip shopping center
where Conan's Vulcan
Straight Music
the porn theater
and Oat Willies
all used to be
I am in the parking lot
with the FringeWare crew
they are lined up
as if for a military inspection
we are all laughing
Justin says
I should tell them
the Zen parable
about the cow and hope
I know this is a clever parable
that needs to be told
 in a particular way
or the punchline is ruined
but I can't remember
exactly how to tell it
the scene shifts
to my grandfather's garage
at the old house on Inwood
in Dallas
I am there with FringeWare guys
my sister and the other girl
two workers are in the garage
from Otter Point
they are using lots of rope
I had left some of my own rope
which I need now
to work on my own project
perhaps the telling of the cow parable
but I can't find it
I ask them if
they accidentally
took my rope
they say no
one of them is
Jon Hamm from Mad Men
they are taking braided rope
and unbraiding them
to use the strands
in whatever project
they are working on
I only need a few strands
I think about taking theirs
but realize it would be wrong
even though they wouldn't care
then I find my rope
but they have taken it
and it is tied to a
block and tackle system
and I do not take it
I am trying to figure out
how to attach something
to the back of the car
I keep thinking about
the parable of the cow
that has to do with hope
I can barely remember it
in the dream
but I feel like
if I just start telling it
the rest will come
it feels like it is
a famous story
that I can look up
after I wake up

this alerts me to the dream
and in a half conscious state
I try to remember the parable
but can only think
about the heroic pig joke
where the traveling salesman
is at the farmer's dinner table
and there is a pig
with one leg missing
eating at the table with them
salesman asks
what's with the pig?
farmer says
that pig saved Suzy from the fire
then saved Bobby in the well
salesman says
so how did it lose its leg
farmers says
a pig that special
you don't want to eat all at once
and I think this is the cow parable
the cow is hope
a cow that special
you don't want to eat all at once