猫の手も借りたい (Neko no te mo karitai)

Literally: I want to borrow even a cat's paw

Example: “年末は注文が多くて、猫の手も借りたいほどだ。” — With all the year-end orders, it's all hands on deck.

English equivalent: All hands on deck

Origin: The earliest documented use appears in Chikamatsu Monzaemon's 1724 puppet-theater play Kanhasshū Tsunagi Uma, in a line describing a household's joyful, all-hands-on-deck busyness during a celebration as needing help so badly it would even "borrow the paws of a cat." The specific choice of a cat, rather than any other animal, carries its own small joke: cats are famously indifferent to human instructions and useful for little beyond catching mice, so being desperate enough to want even a cat's help is a vivid way of describing just how overwhelmed and short-staffed a situation has become.